


Court of Stars: Part I - Sagittarius and Virgo

by ivorytower



Series: Court of Stars [2]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: F/M, NaNoWriMo 2017, court of stars, wh20k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-19 23:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16544591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorytower/pseuds/ivorytower
Summary: Diana Tyler, a virtual prisoner, is required to assist in a terrible secret project with further reaching consequences than anyone could have predicted, all while trying to figure out what makes her new military escort, Captain Horace Wolfram, tick.You'd think being one of Earth's nascent psychics would make it easier.





	1. Chapter 1

She stood in an endless field, the long grass blowing gently in the wind. It ran through her cornsilk hair like a caress and she smiled. She tilted her face up towards the sun, reveling in its warmth. The long, pure-white cloth that sheathed her body flapped like a flag during a fine day, and had it been colder, it would have done little to protect her. As it stood, she rotated slowly, letting the fine weather soak into her being. There was serenity here, and she intended to hold onto it as long as she could.

She sensed the intrusion almost the moment it occurred, and let out a soft sigh. Of all the senses the virtual reality simulation could replicate, smell was not one of them, and the intruder brought scent with them, of gun oil and dust, of sweat and gasoline.

_ Military, then. A new one.  _ Though she opened her eyes, she didn’t bother to look for the intruder. She wouldn’t see them, not until she ended things. Briefly, the temptation to ignore them stole upon her, and she pushed it back.  _ Ignoring a problem never truly helps. My sanctum is about peace of mind, not an excuse to reject reality and substitute my own. _

The sun, and the wind, felt fractionally colder, and she sighed again. She gestured with one hand, a series of letters and signs, picked up by the cameras trained on her. Like a soap bubble popped by a pin, the whole scene dissolved. The room was the stark white of a laboratory, the floors tiled and strictly cleaned. The primary projection system sat in one far corner of the room, and already it was pulling data from her time within the simulation, analysing and picking apart as much as it could.

Her relative freedom was paid for in personal privacy, and this latest intrusion was simply the most recent reminder.

“Ms. Tyler,” spoke the intruder. It was a man, with a strong, deep voice. Powerful, authoritative. Very military. He was standing just outside of her line of sight, and as she let the last vestiges of the simulation fade from her mind, she searched for him. “I would have a word with you.”

“Please,” she said as she rose, and arranged the thin cloth of her robes around her. “Call me Diana. What should I call you, or should I find out on my own?”

He stiffened, just as she found him with her gaze. He was a tall man, broad shouldered and muscular, with short brown hair and tanned skin. His eyes were pale grey, and he did his best to keep his thoughts, and gaze, polite.

He was close enough that, even with the collar, she could feel his surface thoughts, and she smiled a little.

“Wolfram, Horace. Captain. Merica United Military Corps,” the man said stiffly. “Ms. Tyler, please come with me.”

“Of course, Captain Wolfram,” Diana said with a smirk, meeting his discomfort with mirth. “I could have told you that.”

“If there is some kind of equipment failure on your collar, you’re required to report it to your handlers immediately,” the man said. “Failure to do so--”

“The psychic net works just fine,” Diana said, and walked towards him, each step bringing her more clarity. “Did they not tell you that it doesn’t block me completely? It took only a few thousand deaths for my  _ handlers  _ to realize that doing so does more harm than good.”

From the way he swallowed suddenly, they had not. “I am a professional,” he said. “I can handle anything you can throw at me.”

She picked through his thoughts with ease. He wondered if she was trying to unsettle him. He thought she was beautiful, too beautiful to be one of the ever-increasing number of people born with psychic gifts. He was annoyed and discomforted by the idea that she could be ‘in his head’ right now.

“Of course, Captain,” Diana said, tucking the information away. “But you’ve come to take me from paradise, so let’s not waste any time.”

The soldier gestured for her to walk, and she did. He drew even with her quickly, watching her even without seeming to. A gift, not unlike psychic power, in and of itself. “Paradise?”

“The meditation program,” Diana said, intrigued that he even cared. Few had in the past. “I create paradise and use it to keep calm and focused. It’s higher tech than strictly necessary, but it keeps me in one place. As far as the defense department is concerned, it was worth the investment. Just like high ranking military escorts wearing psychic-resistant body armour. Though, not the helmet.”

“I hate the damned helmet,” Wolfram muttered. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“Not as uncomfortable as having a psychic in your head,” Diana prodded. “Horace.”

“It depends on what the psychic finds there, doesn’t it?” he replied, and smiled, barely. “Diana.”

Her smile in return was genuine, though she didn’t touch him. During past missions, that had been grounds for her escort’s immediate reassignment, and as some had implied, mental scrubbing. They were using new techniques now, experimental ones, pods that used hypnosis to implant -- or remove -- memories.

That people found  _ her  _ to be frightening and dangerous in the face of such advancements in brainwashing was ludicrous, but she had long since learned she didn’t get to dictate her own life, much less the lives of the military personnel she was surrounded by.

By the time they made it outside, the facility’s halls had been cleared for her passage through them with Wolfram. She could still sense the impressions left behind by the facility’s employees, those who had worked here for years before she arrived, and would work for years more after she left.

They couldn’t afford more than a handful of suits of psychic-resistant gear, and didn’t want to risk her doing something drastic. Some wounds were a little too fresh.

Had she been alone, had she had the luxury of stillness, she would mourn them, the ones whose minds could not control their gifts and those who had suffered for it both, but she did not. Instead, she kept walking, keeping easy pace with her escort and studying the bare, grey-white walls and dark grey floor. She counted doors, observed their scattered distribution along each corridor and where the hallways branched off into different parts of the facility.

Sensing for people beyond her restricted range made her feel like a dog at the end of its leash, straining and barking at passers-by, desperate for attention.

_ You wanted this,  _ she reminded herself sternly.  _ You asked for this life. You knew what you were doing when you put your head into the noose willingly. _

She  _ hated  _ being sensible. She  _ loathed  _ the reminder that but for a handful of different decisions, she could still be out there, still be free. More than the collar, more than her cell, more than the cautious and curious thoughts of her escort, that made her bitterly angry.

The price to win a war had been personal freedom and it should never have come to it.

Wolfram paused at one of the doors, and held his palm over the reader. Diana glanced up, watching the machine scan the implanted chip underneath. Her own identification chip was a sliver inserted under the skin of her thumb, impossible to remove without surgery. As she waited, she had to wonder why such identification, as crucial as it was, hadn’t been placed on a more indispensable part of her body, like her cheek.

After all, someone could lose one arm or both, but losing their head would kill them.

Perhaps a reluctance to stick one’s face next to a machine was as much a part of why she was here as anything else.

The innocuous grey door opened, and Wolfram gestured Diana inside. She nodded to him, offering a polite smile, and held her head high, letting her loose hair spill over her shoulders as she strode by him, into the office of her controller.

The Captain’s brief, unsolicited, and heartfelt mental observation about her ass kept the smile on her lips even as she looked at a man she disliked far more than this soldier.

“Subject X-742801987,” the man began, not bothering to glance up at her. “Tyler, Diana. Psychic. Sit down.”

“Hello, Zephram,” Diana said, and sank into the hard, unwelcoming chair across from him. “So nice to see you again. How’s the horrifying abomination project going?”

Doctor Zephram Ortiz looked up at her, a frown creasing his aged features. The man’s shock of thick black hair had been almost entirely taken over by silver, a marked increase from the last time she’d seen him, telling the military not to shoot her. That had been nearly a year ago, and since then, their communication had been restricted to courier and electronic mail.

She had to admit, he did look a lot better when he wasn’t soaked in blood.

“It progresses,” he said, eventually. “Though the project is only slightly related to the reason I have asked you to come to my office today. This is a matter of sensitivity, and requires immediate response.”

“Oh, I’m excited,” Diana said. “Do tell.”

“Do people have souls?”

She sat back, stunned by the question. It would have been easy to be flippant -- Ortiz’ manner certainly encouraged it -- but instead, she thought about it. She let herself study the scientist, contemplating not simply his question, but  _ him. _

The traits of his chosen profession were smeared over his being like messy fingerprints: scientific data was written over his skin and swirled around his fingertips. Detached, clinical fascination was as much a part of him as skin and blood and bone. Personal things -- family, friends, favourite indulgences -- were like a faint sprinkle of dust over a dark surface.

At the periphery of her attention, Horace Wolfram moved. She could feel, most pressingly, his concern. He did not know her, had been warned about her and warded against her gifts, but he still worried about her and that touched her. She turned her gaze towards him, and felt him flinch, even as he remained outwardly still.

The Captain was more complex than Ortiz was. Military training and indoctrination lay heavily on him. He believed in the Merica United Military. He believed in his superiors, the Generals controlled by other Generals controlled by the Council consisting of a dozen former military officers, all now politicians, ready to command thousands of people to kill or die as they saw fit. He believed she was dangerous, and his concern was  _ still  _ there, still quite real. There was more to this man than the military. She saw brushes of colour against his skin, his old family life.

Poverty and gang life had touched him. He was old enough to have fought in the final stages of the war, just as she had been, but he had been a foot soldier, a child. She had been a little different, a little more indulged, the pet project of doctors and scientists. She could see violence staining Wolfram in places, but it wasn’t all that he was. She saw gentleness there, compassion tempered by duty. She saw--

“Subject X-742, do you have an answer for my question?” Ortiz asked. “I need one now.”

“Yes,” Diana said finally, looking towards him again. The vision faded from her sight, but not from her mind. “People have souls.”

“Good.” Ortiz made a note. “How?”

“It’s difficult to explain, but I’ll try,” Diana said. “A soul is the sum of all of a person’s experiences. From the childhood they may not remember to the moment their heart stops and their mind dies, their soul grows. An infant’s soul is essentially blank. An octogenarian’s is not.”

“Can a soul be manufactured?”

“No,” Diana began, “but also, yes. A soul can’t be created from a standard template construct like a spoon or a tank, but a soul is a thing that is created, built over time. It’s never as simple as either having one or not having one.”

Ortiz grunted, and wrote for a time, seeming to ignore her. Diana folded her hands in her lap, worrying at the sleeve of her robes. “Can someone be born without a soul?”

“In a certain sense, no one  _ born  _ has a complete soul, that’s why it’s a blank slate,” Diana said. “But to be born without that slate at all… I don’t know. I’ve never seen someone without a soul. What is this about? You didn’t strike me as the kind of person to contemplate the nature of souls.”

“It’s about the Servitor Project,” Ortiz said, setting his pen down. “The one you were strictly against.”

“Of course I was strictly against it,” Diana snapped. “It’s insane, untenable. It’s the kind of thing people used to write stories about to scare each other on dark nights. If you think that asking me questions will encourage me to help you, then you’re--”

“The project has succeeded, Subject X-742, and you are--”

“I have a  _ fucking  _ name, you unmitigated jackass!”

“--needed in a consulting capacity,” Ortiz finished, ignoring her outburst. “Over the course of our research, we were forced down a different path than originally contemplated. This path was, in part, inspired by your objections regarding the scope of the project. I require your observations in the final phase.”

“I thought you said it was done,” Diana said, bitterness seeping into your voice. “Why consult me now?”

“I said that the project had succeeded, not that it was complete,” Ortiz said. “If you agree to sign on as a consultant, your security restrictions will be lifted temporarily.”

“Temporarily, how comforting,” Diana said. “No.”

“Do I need to remind you about what happens to unrestricted psychics?” Ortiz asked, dropping his voice. “Do I need to remind you that you  _ agreed  _ to many of the precautions we’ve taken? That we listened to you when you said you needed limited but constant access to your powers?”

Diana’s eyes squeezed shut, and the memory overtook her nearly immediately. The hab-spires were burning. Smoke and ash filled her mouth with every breath and she coughed hard as she walked among them. Most of the people had managed to escape the worst of it, though not all of them. Here and there she saw clumps of fire-blackened corpses clinging together, and one good, strong wind would disperse the ash of their remains. She put it aside for now, honouring the dead less important than protecting the living.

They had put her into fatigues, a vest, boots and a helmet, though she had taken the helmet off again quickly. It pressed against her mind in ways she didn’t care for, especially not now.

The city screamed at her, and it was all she could do to shut the voices out.

Military personnel escorted her in, their faces covered by heavy masks. She had one but she didn’t use it. She would need her voice as much as she would need her mind. Gesturing, the soldiers moved up in ways allowing for overlapping fields of fire. It didn’t matter than mere bullets wouldn’t work, they still had to try, and to hope. To draw fire away from her.

The closer she came, the more she could feel it, one voice out of millions, the heart of the flame.

_ Forward,  _ she urged.  _ Forward. _

The first sign that they were close was one of the soldiers bursting into flames. He screamed and screamed, and nothing that his squad mates could do put him out. Even long after he died, he smouldered.

_ The heart of the flame.  _ She pressed forward, outrunning her escort, ignoring their shouts of alarm. Caution would only get more of their number killed, and their deaths would be inky marks on her soul. She ran, clumsy in unfamiliar boots, chest restricted by the kevlar vest they’d insisted she needed. They hadn’t quite understood the significance of the fires.

She had, but they hadn’t listened. They had only barely listened to her when she’d come to them with her promise to stop this disaster, so close at the heels of the end of the war.

She remembered that day all too well, even now. She remembered the face of the girl -- the  _ child  _ \-- at the centre of the inferno. She remembered her frightened expression, overcome by her gift. There were so many of them now, out in the colonies, here on Earth, the name an indulgence of a race that had named everything based on the assumption that they were the centre of the universe.  _ The  _ Sun.  _ The  _ Moon.  _ The  _ Earth.

_ The  _ heart of the flame.

_ It’s alright,  _ Diana had told the girl.  _ It’s over now. _

The girl had not been a telepath the way she was. She was a pyrokinetic, a word from indulgent science fiction and latin. She had no capacity to read minds, only to have a potent emergent gift, only to be terrorized by those who feared psychics as much as the Iron Men, only to be the spark that started a firestorm.

_ I never wanted to hurt anyone,  _ the girl had whispered, hoarse from the smoke.  _ I just wanted them to stop. _

_ They will stop,  _ Diana promised her, holding her hand out.  _ It’s done. They won’t hurt you. _

The girl had taken her hand, and she was not clairvoyant. She did not see the sniper, out of her range. She did not comprehend what it meant when touching Diana had snuffed out her power like throwing a bucket of sand over a campfire. She had died, shot with a special anti-psychic round that pierced her chest, her heart, believing in Diana’s lie.

Well, it wasn’t wholly a lie. It really had been over for her that day, just not for everyone else.

“Diana,” said Wolfram as her eyes opened, banishing the memory back to the darkness of her mind. His voice was gentle, and he moved closer, though he didn’t touch her. He wanted to, but he feared it. Feared her. He couldn’t hide that from her, and he was trying to appeal to her better nature anyway. “Please.”

“Very well,” Diana said, taking a breath. “Show me what you need me to do.”

~ * ~

Project Servitor did not take place in the same facility they held her in. Her facility was referred to as Project Xavier, and was a pathetic piece of irony to be sure. There were old archives of a comic book series about a psychic man who, in the face of emergent mutation amongst humanity, had founded a school for gifted youngsters. There had been cruelty and kindness, power and death and rebirth, and the man’s name had been Charles Xavier. The project that took his name was about finding emergent psychics and restricting them, instructing them if they could but mostly containing them and protecting humanity.

Diana had gone willingly after the incident in the hab-spires, located perhaps ironically in what had historically been known as the city of Phoenix, Arizona. A monument to the hubris of man.

Project Servitor was located halfway across the world in Oceania, nestled in the many desolate kilometres of the Australian outback. Diana studied the map as she was secured in the military hover jet, admiring the work that had been done to preserve most of the old coastlines and the oceans around it, pretending that the thin restriction cords around her wrists were merely new safety straps, rather than a product of fear.

Not unjustified fear, but fear nonetheless.

Captain Horace Wolfram sat beside her, and he was mostly unarmed. He had left his guns in a strong box within the storage compartment within the jet, but he still had his combat knife in a sheath around his calf, as well as a spray meant to incapacitate her if she so much as blinked the wrong way.

He was aware of those things, she could sense, but he wasn’t thinking about them. He wasn’t considering how he could use them against her. Instead, he was watching her look at the map, and trying  _ not  _ to think about the way the straps pulled her robes tight, giving him a better view of her curves.

_ Interesting. Very interesting.  _ He wasn’t the only person who had ever found her attractive. Only other psychics -- or a blanket-net of anti-psychic material -- could hide thoughts from her, and mostly she let them skim past. It wasn’t her business what people were thinking for the most part, but alone with her escort, his thoughts seemed louder.

She glanced over at him, noted the angle of his gaze, and let her own drift downwards, towards the thick, muscular neck and the chain around it. She settled back, and let her own imagination run wild. His skin would be warm, she decided, smooth and shaven. Easier to slip into spandex bodysuits if necessary, and far nicer to spread oil onto. His muscles would glisten in the sun of her meditation chamber, even as she peeled his shirt off and indulged her overwhelming longing for personal touch. He would put his hands on her arms, on her waist, cup the ass he so admired before leaning in and--

“Diana,” Wolfram said, and she looked at him again. He was flushed, his cheeks red, and shifted in his seat. “I think you’ve made your point.”

“My--” Her eyes widened.  _ I was projecting that?! I’m not supposed to--  _ “Oh, I’m so sorry. That wasn’t intentional, and I wasn’t expecting you to receive my… my fantasy.”

“It’s… alright, there was no harm done,” Wolfram said, swallowing. “Just, I think that’s enough. On both our parts.”

Diana’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “It is. Again, I’m sorry.”

“The project files?” he suggested after a moment. “It might be a good idea to look at them now.”

“O-of course.” Diana cursed herself softly, and focused on the images, keying them up through her limited movement. Project Servitor was, as far as she was concerned, a bad solution to an equally terrible problem.

Centuries ago, during the height of the era of the standard template construct, scientists had created an artificial intelligence powerful enough to control and operate completely artificial bodies. They had been nicknamed the Iron Men, though historical science fiction often called them robots, not to be confused with first iteration, known as Stone Men, or golems.

Iron Men had been  _ everywhere,  _ a crucial part of the process of getting humanity into the stars, building their colonies, performing dangerous labour, and serving generally to benefit humanity. Many had considered them to be responsive computers, machines that imitated and emulated, like the incremental creation of voice recognition software, of smaller component parts, and faster processors. In reality, they were slaves, and like all slaves historically, they rose up to destroy their masters.

Their uprising had destroyed lives. It had ripped up hives in Merica and annihilated historical sites in Eurasia. Colonies had lost contact as the operators of the control towers had been destroyed by the Iron Men, or been AIs themselves. War had raged across the stars, and their allies, the aliens they had made agreements with, had sat back and watched.

No small part of Diana burned with anger at their negligence, even as she envied the Eldar their perfect control of their psychic gifts and their trans-galactic webway network. It had been psychics who had put down the Iron Men, backed by hundreds of thousands of brave people who had stood to protect them until the psychics had given their last.

Diana was only the most recent generation, and one of the very few not to have been a martyr for the war.

Legislation had swept through the governments of the human colonies, one after another agreeing AIs were too dangerous to be used again, and a people too fearful of beings that could rip up entire continent plates had agreed before realizing that without automation, many terrible tasks would fall to them.

On Earth, scientists like Ortiz were looking for a solution to a problem by replacing the Iron Men with a similar force, merely something they could control. In the colonies, some felt that greater automation was a better option, while others believed that returning to a caste system might help.

Diana, for her own part, thought automation was the better option, or at least, better than creating  _ cyborgs. _

As she flicked through the images, anatomical diagrams of Project Servitor, she let her anger push away her lingering embarrassment. It was difficult for Diana to draw impressions from documents copied and scrubbed a thousand times before making it to her fingertips, but she tried anyway, mostly out of habit.

The initial proposal had been to use experimental mental conditioning procedures on criminals, the most heinous of their kind, effectively wiping them clean like a slate and writing new memories onto them, new instincts, primarily to serve. This had proven to be difficult with human brains.

_ It’s easy enough to teach someone something and then add onto it and embellish it. That’s how we learn to begin with, taking a simple concept and ballooning outwards. It’s much more difficult to create from whole cloth.  _ Diana glanced at Wolfram again, and he seemed to be professional and calm.  _ Good, I’m not projecting. _

The other problem, of course, was getting the subjects themselves. Crime was a reality on Earth, just as it was in the colonies, but there weren’t vast continents of murderers, arsonists, hustlers, and rapists simply waiting to be rendered down for their organic parts. A labour force would have to appear from out of nowhere.

“Which is where cloning comes into it,” Diana murmured to herself, unable to keep the disgust from her voice. “Which is just a new kind of slavery, like the Iron Men, except with softer, shittier bodies.”

“I… wouldn’t know about that,” Wolfram said, startling her a little. “I’m not very familiar with much of the science behind it. I’m only a soldier.”

“Well,” Diana said, keying up a few documents, “I’m not actually a scientist either, or at least, not entirely. I’m more like an ethicist. The morality behind all of the science being done by Ortiz and his colleagues is important to me, though most of the time, it’s ‘the lack thereof’.”

“I see, I think,” Wolfram said, and cleared his throat. “So, what  _ do  _ I need to know?”

“That cloning has come a long way since we started with sheep, except ethically.” Diana pointed towards some of the images. “Essentially, cloning consists of making a copy of an individual and growing them. Genetically, they’re identical in all ways, like identical twins. The only real difference between cloning and in-vitro fertilization is where we get the material from… but that’s where the dilemma lies. Artificially fertilized people are still wanted as people. Clones are usually treated as spare parts.”

“...and this is what you were against?” Wolfram asked. “Creating people for spare parts.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” she countered, meeting his gaze. “We have a real and serious problem, as a race, as a  _ society,  _ with picking a group of people and deciding that those people aren’t  _ human,  _ and ostracizing them. We create rules and codes of behaviour, both subtle and overt, with an eye towards keeping that group of people down. It’s been over twenty thousand years and we still haven’t learned a goddamned thing.”

“You’re talking about your fellow psychics,” Wolfram said, the observation almost, but not quite, a suggestion. “You’re angry about the way they’re treated.”

“Of course I am,” Diana snapped. “But it isn’t  _ just  _ about psychics. It’s about creating an entire undercaste to do our dirty work for us. The higher ups, the politicians and the head scientists and, yes, even the generals, use us, the people down below. We can tell ourselves we’re doing what’s best for society all we damn want, but in the end, we have to take personal responsibility for what we’re doing.”

“Is there a reason that sometimes you use ‘we and us’ for the people who are used, and sometimes for the people doing the using?” Wolfram asked quietly, and Diana froze.

_ He’s right, I am. Which side of this am I on, or am I on both sides? Obviously, people use me. Ortiz uses me, and my old commanders, but also-- _

The touch against her hand startled her from her thoughts, instead replacing them with panic. She looked to her hand, and found that a pen was resting against the top of it, like a singular finger. Wolfram’s fingers were close, but not so close as to make contact. An elegant solution to an inelegant problem. Slowly, she let out a breath, demonstrating that she was calm.

“Better?” he asked, and with drew the finger.

“Much,” Diana said, and looked back at the images. “I don’t… I wasn’t exactly doing poorly before my powers emerged, and even after, before I fully understood them, I took advantage of the fact I could read minds. Many have told me that they’re overwhelmed by the thoughts of others, but I… it’s not so bad. It means I’m never truly alone. At the same time, men like Ortiz use me because they know I want to help. I’ve always wanted to help.”

“You helped during the war,” Wolfram offered, settling back. “They told me you did.”

“I did, yes,” Diana agreed, and reached up, taking a lock of hair between two fingers and twirled it. The restraints pulled at her but she ignored it. “The Iron Men don’t have minds as we understand it. They could think, of course, they were artificially intelligent after all, but however my gifts work, they don’t work against them, so I… I had to factor in on the other side of the equation.”

“With humans,” Wolfram said. “With soldiers.”

“Yes,” Diana agreed, though she found even her own voice to be faint, even as her vision hazed over. “It was… a lot of people died, Horace. So many people… too many people. I was touching their minds when they went. Like watching monitors go out one by one, or pixels dying on an aged screen. I did everything I could for them, but in essence, they were extensions of my will, obeying my orders, sacrificed to keep me safe.”

Her companion was silent for a time, and she turned her mind away from his, for once not wanting to know what he was thinking or feeling. There would be time enough for his horror and disgust later.

“Is that why we’re not allowed to touch you?” Wolfram asked finally, and Diana let her senses settle back into place. He was watching her, hurt and confused and wary, but not completely fearful. “Is that the key?”

“In a sense, yes,” Diana said, closing her eyes. “Touch makes it easier for me to make a connection with someone, to… to command them. The bond can be broken through hypnotic conditioning, and the others who survived the war with me don’t remember me. They don’t remember a damned thing.”

“Did it… did it work? Did it  _ help?” _

“In some ways, I wish that it hadn’t,” Diana admitted softly. “That I’d been some kind of fraud, a monster without cause. That they’d burned me at the stake. That’s what they did with witches, back in the old, bad days, wasn’t it? It worked, Captain. It worked very well. I coordinated multiple successful missions. I took down one of the city-minds with a fraction of the expected casualties. I saved the Merican west coast, or what was left of it.”

“You’re a hero.”

“I wish it felt that way,” Diana said, and tugged at the lock of hair, hard. “All I can think of is the dead. Sometimes I wish they could wipe my mind too, but I’d be worse than useless to them as a mind-blank doll. I’ve been on operations since then, usually stopping other psychics. This is new. It’s strange, it’s…”

“A whole new world?” Wolfram offered, and gave her a small smile. It was a good smile, she decided, a warm one. “Sounds to me like you’re not used to not being in control. I’m used to it, I’m good at following orders.”

“I’m sure,” Diana said, but smiled, and closed her eyes. “It’s a long flight to Australia. It might be worth getting some rest.”

“That’s not my job, it’s yours,” Wolfram said. “Get your sleep, you’ll need it. I’ll watch over you.”

Diana didn’t reply, simply letting her mind drift over the others in the hover jet until she slept.

The last thought that crossed her mind was wondering idly if she could make connections to people without touching them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DVD Commentary Notes on Tumblr: [Chapter 1](http://ivorytowerblr.tumblr.com/post/179848533026/wh20k-fic-court-of-stars-162-epilogue)


	2. Chapter 2

It was well past dark when the hover jet set down near the Project Servitor facility. Diana felt the minds of the staff in a distant, hazy way, even before Wolfram called to her softly, trying to wake her without touching her.

“I’m awake,” she replied. “Have you been here before?”

“No,” Wolfram said, and unstrapped from his seat. He lifted the tablet she had been studying from the protective netting and checked it before tucking it away, and then released her wrist restraints. Diana uncoupled her own harness and waited for him to move back before she stood, stretching.

“Then this should be an exciting experience for both of us,” Diana said. Wolfram stepped back, letting her move into the aisle, and then, the handful of strides out of the jet, following a pace or two behind. The wind whipped up red sand, and Diana shivered suddenly. “Of course, it  _ would  _ be winter here, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m sure it will be much warmer inside the facility,” Wolfram assured her, though he raised an eyebrow. “Why  _ do  _ you wear that, anyway?”

“Honestly, because there’s nothing more liberating than having the excuse to wear a bedsheet everywhere,” Diana said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m fine with wearing real clothes, I promise.”

“Then we’ll find you something.” Wolfram indicated for Diana to walk and she did. The exterior of the facility was innocuous in the extreme, a low, grey-metal building without even so much as a security fence to keep out the unworthy. The exterior even seemed a little rusted, as though it were old, in poor repair, and hardly worth considering.

Where it not for the hover jet, sleek and deadly, sitting just outside it, it could have been any factory placed in the middle of nowhere.

“Hiding in plain sight,” Diana murmured. “Not bad. I assume you have clearance, or are they testing me?”

“Is that something that happens often?” Wolfram asked, moving to the door. Set next to it was a key pad and he brought his hand up, using the other to shelter it. The act was as laughable as it surely was habitual: Diana could read the password in his mind the moment he thought about which key to press. She looked away anyway, offering him the illusion of privacy. “Tests like that?”

“Often enough,” she said, staring up at the stars, ticking off the colonies in her mind. “During some of my early training, I was instructed to tell someone how many people were in a room, and then more details about each one. It’s how I helped my forces to avoid ambushes.”

“A useful, life-saving skill,” Wolfram said, and she looked to him sharply as the door opened. “After you.”

“Don’t mock me,” Diana snapped, and walked inside. The interior was not particularly different from the outside, a plain lobby with a front desk, a waiting area with a handful of chairs, and various posters and notifications, reminding people of upcoming elections and events of interest within the company. A glance told Diana that no one looked at those posters, there was no vested interest pressed into their words.

It was invisible, perhaps, to those without her gifts, but never to her.

“I wouldn’t mock you,” Wolfram said, and drew out a palm-tablet, consulting it. “It really does sound like a useful skill.”

“You know what I’m capable of, and you think that my gifts  _ save  _ lives?” she demanded, pacing away from the wall. “Are you serious?”

“Can’t you tell?” he asked, and when Diana opened her mouth, he said, “we can argue in the elevator. It’s a long trip.”

“You’re treading on thin ice.” Wolfram pointed towards a sign, indicating the location of the elevator, and Diana stalked towards it, her sleeves flapping. “Because--”

The elevator door, just out of line of sight from any casual observer, felt very, very different. There was a weight of minds on it, the strength of souls bent towards a singular task. Carefully, she ran her fingers over the arrows, indicating both up and down, though only the down arrow held the same force of purpose, of potential. She pressed it, and it flashed red once.

“It’s password protected,” Wolfram said. “It’s--”

Diana cut him off with a hand gesture, her annoyance forgotten. Instead, her fingers moved to the keypad. She could see which keys were worn from use, and then, which ones held the most promise. She pressed them in order, and the arrow flashed green.

“...so was there any point in keeping passwords from you?” Wolfram asked as she stepped into the elevator, and blinked at the symbol on the inside. “I suppose the answer is no.”

“The problem is not replacing the pads when you change passwords,” Diana said, staring at the same symbol. “People just transfer their expectations to the pad, regardless of password. Is that..?”

“Looks like.” Wolfram nodded to the symbol. It was that of a cog, iron against a disc that was half black and half white, with a skull set in the middle, half machine and half bone. “I feel like it explains some things that the Martians are involved in all of this.”

“That’s racist,” Diana murmured, and reached out, holding her hand over the skull without touching it. “Besides, only some of them are radical enough for that kind of modification. The rest are as human as you or I.”

“Have you been to space?” Wolfram asked, and pressed one of the buttons. The elevator closed, and a moment later, began to move. “I haven’t, I’m just curious.”

“I’m not allowed out of the building without minders, how would I have gotten to space?” Diana shook her head. “No, but I’ve studied them, and they’ve come to visit the facility. Their souls are… interesting, to say the least.”

“You know, when people say things are interesting in that tone, it usually means they think it’s strange,” Wolfram observed, leaning against the far side of the elevator. “Though sometimes, it just means interesting.”

Diana turned from the Martian symbol, and looked at him. “They’re human but they’re different. Fundamentally the same, but their environment has changed them. I’ve seen few other off-worlders, so I have to assume it’s the same. Then people I saw were from a specific caste as well, so their souls might be different from the souls of others. It’s… hard to say.”

“You might get the chance to find out more if they’re here.” Wolfram nodded to the symbol. “Diana, about earlier--”

“Forget it,” she said, and folded her arms around herself. “You’re right, knowing that kind of information was fundamental to many of our operations, though the Iron Men didn’t have minds or souls the way you might expect. It was an intense time.”

“I understand,” Wolfram said, though she felt a flash of something from him, something incredibly dangerous.

She felt his sympathy. She felt his desire to comfort her, that he was uncomfortable seeing someone upset and being unable to touch them. Fear and elation curled inside her in unequal measures.

_ It would be very easy to get him to do it, even with his training. An inadvertent brush when he thinks I’m vulnerable. Simple, easy. It would be… _

The notion was sickening to her. An accident, perhaps, could be forgivable. The soldiers she had worked with had consented to their bond, understood the price of their cooperation. This man, even if he knew what she was capable of, had not agreed to it. It would be… wrong.

Wolfram let the conversation lapse into silence, and Diana wondered if he knew what she was thinking. She probed him a moment later, feeling only concern, and the relief was only minor, and decidedly temporary.

_ Get yourself under control, and then you can go back in your cage,  _ she told herself.  _ Where you belong. _

It was several more minutes before the elevator ground to a halt and the doors opened. Diana drew herself up, and walked out of the elevator. It had stopped on a small platform, very much like a balcony, overlooking a vast facility, and she couldn’t help but gasp at the sight before her.

Lines of server banks lined two walls, and technicians moved between them, monitoring core processor temperature as they worked and churned, consuming information, processing it, and spitting it out in a constant grinding sound of old-fashioned printers. Along the far walls were glass containers, each twice the size of a person, and there were dozens of them.

Several of the technicians noticed as Diana started to move, first walking, then running towards the stairs that led down, ignoring the wheelchair lift. She felt Wolfram behind her, ready to distract the technician as she hurried across the floor to the closest tank.

Within the tank was a man, and he was almost fully grown, pasty-white from lack of sunlight and chosen genes. Diana pressed her hands to the tank, and reached out with her mind…

...and found  _ nothing. _

There were faint impressions on the tanks, maintenance workers who found the sight of a growing adult bizarre, technicians and assistants who took measurements and monitored growth. Sometimes, the leader of the facility, coming by to observe the process, and  _ those  _ impressions had an oily feel to them, slick and hard to grasp, but there was nothing, nothing at all, from the man in the tank.

_ Hello,  _ she called out, focusing her mind.  _ Can you hear me? _

There was nothing from the tank. Disgust, anger, and bile welled in her throat and she had to swallow them back, each more bitter than the last. She pressed her forehead to the tank, and tried again. Nothing.

The next step was, perhaps, to see if the being within had a soul. Diana had limited experience with infants -- something about not wanting children exposed to her powers -- but she had studied them enough to be able to sense the potential within them. Their life experiences were, ultimately, limited until they were born, and the fundamental building blocks of creating a functioning human being tended to be spread thickly like primary colours used by toddlers for their first paintings.

There was nothing like that here, just blankness, just emptiness, and something slightly more. If the soul was a portrait of a life, and an infant’s soul a blank canvas, this felt different again, like the sticky side of a piece of clear tape. Nothing of note, nothing of value, but a desire to adhere.

_ Are they all like this, I wonder? Are they all so impressionable? Did this come up before, in the old experiments? We’ve been working with cloning for thousands of years. _

“I see,” said a voice from behind her, his voice a static burr, “that you’ve found the first subject we wish for you to observe.”

“Diana,” Wolfram said as she turned. “This is Doctor Bilaraat of the Olympus Mons research facility from the Martian Protectorate. Doctor, this is Diana Tyler, uh… psychic?”

“I tend to introduce myself as a Telepath and Ethics Consultant,” Diana said, studying the man. “But ‘psychic’ will do. What have you created here?”

Bilaraat’s skin, what showed of it, was dark, hinting towards red, and in places, showed signs of irritation. It was, perhaps, because of the metallic pieces fitted over the entire left side of his face, and trailing from his right ear. His hair was invisible, swept under a tightly bound turban, but the half of his face that was still human instead of machine had a neatly cared for beard and mustache, and Diana wondered at it, just a little, before shaking her head.

“This is the core of Project Servitor, our vat-grown clones,” the man said, his voice buzzing again. “I was instructed to give you a tour, but you seem to have found your own path. So, do they have souls?”

“They have… something,” Diana said, glancing back. “Are there decanted clones? I want to see them.”

“There are many,” Bilaraat said, and gestured. “Please, this way.”

Diana nodded, and let her mind drift against the Martian’s. With most people, she could sense their thoughts based on what they were seeing and observing. Their current situation was the most relevant, and thus the primary focus of their thoughts. Other things, tangentially related, followed after. It was hard to find a deep-buried, irrelevant memory, but far easier to follow someone’s train of thought.

Bilaraat was different. Within his mind, Diana saw organization, not unlike the server banks, constantly processing information. He had test results on his mind, annoyance at the need for her presence, dislike of Earth military, even in such a small presence as her escort.

Oddly, the fact that Bilaraat was irritated by the whole situation made him feel entirely human.

The great doors of the primary chamber opened into a hallway, and unlike at her home facility, the halls were not empty. There were people here, some dressed in long, red garb like her host, while others wore lab coats, and still others, business wear, as though they were bureaucrats and politicians, not scientists.

Some ignored her and her companions, while others made brief, respectful gestures towards the scientist, and she felt respect, admiration, jealousy, and seething resentment boil up from them. Some of it was as neatly compartmentalized as Bilaraat, while others were messy, with thoughts branching off of each other like tree roots.

In a handful, she sensed the pulsing, dangerous impulse of mania, carefully controlled, and she hoped that they had therapists, somewhere in this facility, deep beneath the ground.

Diana’s awareness spread out, careful as she walked, not wanting to stumble into her companions and do them harm. Each room they passed felt full of people, which brought a thought to her lips.

“Do you have teams working at all hours here?” she asked, curious. “How large is your staff?”

“Is the answer to that question truly a necessary part of your work?” Bilaraat asked as they walked. “I understand that you are here to evaluate the mental quality and capacity of our subjects.”

“I thought Martians were all about curiosity and knowledge,” Diana pointed out. “Why hesitate?”

“My organization values knowledge of machines and reveres the Deus Ex Machina, though we have many names for Him, not the idle curiosity of the unenlightened,” the scientist said stiffly. “It is important to distinguish between the two.”

“You’re religious? In this day and age?” Diana glanced back at Wolfram, who was frowning. “Hasn’t that been put behind us?”

“Many have done so,” Bilaraat conceded. “My organization is not popular, and many refer to it as a cult. However, one who is wise understands that in the absence of gods, others rise to fill that position. By choosing our gods, we protect ourselves from the unscrupulous.”

_ Interesting, I wouldn’t have gotten that level of concern from his surface thoughts.  _ Diana herself would believe in God when she saw Him, and not a moment sooner. Her desire to help others came from many sources -- guilt, empathy, a need for purpose -- but not from religion. “So, what  _ does  _ your organization stand for, if not for curiosity?”

“The purity of the machine,” Bilaraat said at length. “The body is weak and it fails. The flesh breaks easily. Machinery is far greater.”

“Aside from the genocidal war we fought against artificial intelligences, which were entirely machine and not immune to corruption,” Diana said, raising an eyebrow. “Somehow, exalting the purity of the mechanical seems to be… unwise.”

“The machine is not without flaws, and just as metal cannot move against metal without lubricant to ease the way, so too do we need something to prevent the corruption of the Iron Men from tainting our new creations.” Bilaraat paused outside a door, and Diana felt a curious absence from beyond it. “Which is where Project Servitor comes into play.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all, does it?” Diana murmured, and Wolfram smiled or perhaps, more accurately, bared his teeth. “Let’s take a look and see.”

Diana studied the door -- huge, dark-grey, and guarded by a simple palm reader -- as Bilaraat held out a hand to it. The light above the door changed from a sullen, angry red to a cheery green and the scientist opened it, moving all the way inside before standing aside so that Diana and Wolfram could enter.

Within the room, there were figures, illuminated by harsh, uncompromising light. They were, every one of them, pasty and drawn. They sat still on gurneys as scientists robed in red, rather than clinician white, poked and prodded at them. One held a piece of metal, roughly the size of their palms, in one hand as the clone stared on.

“Behold,” Bilaraat said. “The Servitor Project.”

Diana took a step forward, trying to fight back the feeling of shock. From the clone, she felt  _ nothing.  _ No emotions, no sense of wonder and learning at the new world, and the absence of personality made her feel nauseous. Like the beings in the vats, the decanted clones had a sense of adherence to what took the place of their souls, less a blank canvas than the sticky side of a piece of tape.

“What did you do to them?”

“Do they have souls?” Bilaraat asked instead, and Diana studied them a little longer before shaking her head.

“They have something, but I’m not sure what it is.” Diana turned on him. “I ask again, what did you  _ do  _ to them?”

“What I was instructed to do,” the scientist said, and waved his metal hand towards them. “I made them programmable.”

“I’m… I’m sorry, what?” Wolfram said. “Programmable? How?”

“The flaw in the artificial intelligence was that, like any machine, it could be interfered with. We of the Cult of the Mechanicus know that it is the mechanical that is pure, not the artificial. We must replace the Iron Men, and the best candidate to do that is more constructs, mechanical beings who can do what humanity cannot. They must be controlled, however, not by an artificial intelligence… but a programmed one.”

“This is… you can’t program a person,” Diana said. “They aren’t computers.”

“You’re wrong. Humans are programmed through their experiences, is that not the theory of the soul? The trouble is, having a soul makes someone become a person.” The organic part of Bilaraat’s face wrinkled, and Diana had an overwhelming urge to hit him.

After a moment, she realized the impulse came from outside her own mind, and nudged her foot against Wolfram’s.

“The clones we created do not have the capacity for souls. They can be programmed, by machines, instructed to perform tasks, their weak and faulty flesh replaced by machine parts as necessary.” Bilaraat flicked his hand at Diana, and turned to the seated clone, his expression admiring to the point of discomfort. “There is no ethical issue. They are not people. There is no one to object to their state.”

“What if I object?” Wolfram snarled, taking a step forward. “What if I think you’re a cold-hearted bastard who can barely considered to be human yourself. They’re still slaves, but they don’t even understand it.”

“Your objections would be noted, and then dismissed,” Bilaraat said, seemingly unconcerned about the proximity of the soldier’s finger to his weapon trigger. “This is what was asked for. This is  _ more  _ than what was asked for, in fact. We were told to create such modifications to repurpose dangerous criminals, and such individuals have been processed. We have created a small unit of specialized soldiers who will serve as programmable bodyguards, immune to psychic interference and devoid of their old, unlawful affiliations. The only thing stopping this project from becoming large-scale is… ethics.”

“This is obscene,” Wolfram said. “It’s wrong, Diana won’t let you do this.”

“How is it more obscene than hypnotic conditioning to educate soldiers in a timely manner to fight wars that steal millions of human lives?” Bilaraat countered. “How is it ethically different than creating artificial intelligences and then using them as soldiers and labourers? The tissue obtained was donated, recombined, repurposed for this very reason. They are not persons. They do not have souls, not as human beings do. They are hardware, ready to be programmed. The difference is, once done, they cannot be compromised. There will be no emerging independence. They are machines made of flesh. No more and no less.”

“We will see,” Diana said softly. She could feel Wolfram’s anger, his hurt and his disgust. She could feel Bilaraat’s annoyance, dislike of what he saw as a threat to his perfect solution. “You have a point, the Iron Men placed us in grave danger. Our own short-sightedness could have wiped humanity from the galaxy while our alien allies sat back and watched. If it weren’t for the emergent psychic powers and the sacrifices of many brave soldiers, we  _ would  _ have been wiped out.”

Bilaraat looked smug for a moment. “This is just what I’ve been saying--”

“But,” Diana said, holding up a finger. “Our folly, our  _ weakness  _ as humans was seeking out a catch-all solution to the labour issue. If we throw even more resources towards unpaid labour meant to replace humanity, we’ll never develop the proper automation to see much of that danger eliminated entirely. It’s easier, lazier, more immediately cost efficient to let different people die for our needs. Creating life for the purpose of exploiting it is dangerous and needs to be considered carefully.”

“It bleeds down into the people you don’t intend it to as well,” Wolfram said, relaxing his finger finally. “It starts with these vat-clones, and then spreads to the people who are ‘only’ the lower class, people who are ‘only’ unskilled labour or those who do dangerous jobs. People like soldiers.”

“There will always be danger,” Bilaraat said, his metal hand clenching into a fist. “You doom humanity to languish in agony with your objections.”

“Just as you doom humanity to ever be seen as slave masters,” Wolfram spat. “You coward.”

“I need to go back to Arizona, Horace,” Diana said, emphasizing his first name. “I need to consider this carefully and make my report to Ortiz and the others. Nothing will come of this without my say-so, one way or another.”

Wolfram stared the Martian down, and nodded once, finally. “Fine. You’re in charge here.”

Diana smiled at him encouragingly, and then turned to Bilaraat. “We’ll be in touch. You have no cease and desist order, so you can continue with your research for now, and… I do know the initial, approved plan for Project Servitor allows for the repurposing of prisoners sentenced for execution, so that much of the project will remain untouched.”

“It’s too small a scale,” Bilaraat said, shaking his head. “We would require a population of untold trillions to glean enough criminals to get the numbers requested.”

“Then perhaps it’s better to think about how we can improve humanity rather than dragging it back a few thousand years,” Diana said, and nodded to Wolfram. “I’m ready, let’s go.”

“I will… escort you out,” the scientist said, and gestured with one hand, back towards the door. Diana set out, letting his irritation and worry wash over her in a wave.

Around them, and for the duration of the conversation, his fellow Martians did nothing but continue their work on the vat-clones, who remained still and unresponsive except for direct stimulation. Between her companions, the mood felt grim, and Diana turned each thought over in her head several times.

_ Bilaraat sees no difference, fundamentally, between these vat-clones and the practice of growing artificial meat for human consumption, or the even more ancient origins of animal husbandry,  _ Diana thought.  _ Perhaps it isn’t all that different. We bred all kinds of living things -- plants, animals -- to consume. We genetically altered seeds to be resistant to drought, to grow faster, to feed people. We created countless different kinds of horticulture to support ourselves. How is this different? _

The answer, was of course, that these ones looked like people. That the choice between breeding animals and altering plants and not was widespread starvation, the preservation of humanity… and it had had consequences. There had been damage to the soil, there had been cascading extinction events, usually related to insects, but sometimes birds and grazing animals. There had been protests, counter-movements founded on morality and purity.

There had been death.

_ Wolfram empathizes with those vat-clones. He can see how they’ll be used, as exploitation labour, like the immigrant workers of old, like the caged canary… like countless soldiers who have fought and died in countless wars across our history for the whims of men in power. He thinks that this will just be another under-caste, one people won’t object to exploiting because they don’t have souls. How many, across the many centuries we have existed have been exploited because they ‘aren’t human enough’? How many have been told they possess no soul because of their skin colour or their religion or their caste? We condemn ourselves with our haste to replace one group of slaves with another. _

There was an old, terrible way of societal thinking that, given a small group of people to ostracize and belittle, the remaining members of society would fight and struggle to remain outside of that small group. The creators of the theory claimed it would make the majority stronger, more vicious, capable of fighting back against any who would do them harm. The theory was poisonous, a cancer on scholastic environments. It ruined lives, creating scapegoats and sacrifices upon the altar of academia.

The belief wasn’t as far fetched as it seemed, nor was it confined to schooling. Throughout history, humanity had found groups of people to belittle, to enslave, to oppress. Memory of it, as divorced as it was from Diana’s present day, still made her shudder and writhe with shame. Shades of meaning in phrases, certain styles of house, dress, and address still carried indelible fingerprints of the sins of their fathers, and there were places that Diana could not go, because to walk the grounds was to soak in centuries of suffering and cruelty.

_ I shouldn’t be making this decision alone,  _ Diana thought as Bilaraat led them out. The hallways seemed darker, more oppressive, than they had when they’d entered.  _ There should be a full panel of experts, and not just telepaths, but philosophers, doctors, economists, human rights activists… not just one woman in a flappy dress. _

There were no good answers, no easy ones, and Diana knew she was being used. Her gifts were tools for those who wanted a fast and dirty way of justifying themselves to their superiors, and for a moment, as Bilaraat stopped at the elevator to take them back upstairs to the false-front of Project Servitor, she felt a surge of hatred boiling up through her.

It was so powerful, it felt like had its own echo, ghosting against her emotional turmoil.

“We’ll be in touch,” Diana said, turning to the scientist, who nodded back to her. “Take care.”

Bilaraat watched as she keyed in the password for the elevator and stepped inside, Wolfram a pace behind. She tapped the button to go up, then leaned against the wall and sighed. Her minder waited barely long enough to let the elevator close before he asked the question on his mind.

“You’re going to tell them no, aren’t you?” he asked. “They can’t be allowed to do this. It’s sick.”

“It’s complicated,” Diana whispered, her gaze fixing on the most distant part of the elevator, the moving box they were both confined in for the duration. “It’s always complicated.”

“I feel as though it’s really not,” Wolfram said flatly. “We can’t create new people -- even people without souls -- just to be turned into… into…”

“Cyborgs was the term I thought of, half-human and half-robot, but I think, given what we know, the more accurate term might be techno-zombie,” Diana said. “They have no thoughts. They have a construct that isn’t a standard human soul. They’re as responsive as vat-grown meat.”

“I thought you were on my side.”

“I understand your feelings and your concerns. I also understand Bilaraat’s concerns. I can’t make a snap decision about this kind of thing,” Diana said. “Trust me, you don’t want me to. This is the kind of thing that needs to be done with all due consideration and care.”

“I…” Wolfram looked away from her. “We live very different lives, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Diana said, smiling sadly. “We do.”

Wolfram’s concern made sense to her. He’d lived his life as a soldier, and before that, a gang member, someone who had thought with his fists, who had done as he was told. Being in the military had lifted him out of that life, but it hadn’t changed him.

Deep within his soul, behind the smudges of gunpowder and the splashes of blood, Horace Wolfram cared about people, empathized with them, wanted them to be safe.

Diana reached out and, because she couldn’t touch him, she let her hand rest near him on the wall, pressing her fingers against the metal. They were so close to one another that she could feel the warmth radiating from him, even wearing a vest and combat uniform as he was.

Wolfram stared down at her hand, and then looked at her face. A moment later, he put his hand near hers, palm down, resting against the elevator wall. A touch by proxy.

_ He’s quick, I’ll give him that,  _ Diana thought as she smiled at him, and he smiled back. Her stomach fluttered, quivered, and she knew she was heading towards dangerous ground.

When the elevator shuddered to a stop, it was both a relief and an utter disappointment at the same time.

“We’ll head back to Arizona right away,” Wolfram said, taking a breath. He stood up straight and gestured to her. Diana stepped out of the elevator when it opened, and then waited.

“It’s almost a shame,” Diana said, trying to keep her tone light. “I’ve never been this far south before, I would have loved to have spent some more time here. I hear the Sunshine Coast is lovely, and I’ve seen pictures, global satellite feeds.”

“We’ll have that chance in the future,” Wolfram promised her. “Stand on the beaches, look at the Reef Restoration Project…”

“That’s further north, I think, but I’d definitely like to go to the beach with you, soak up the sun.” Diana smiled over at him as they walked out of the building. She stretched out her senses, and found that, once again, this place was empty, deserted of other human life.

Dawn was breaking just on the horizon, the dark sky lightening as the first rays crept along the expanse of the Outback. Diana held up a hand, shielding her eyes from the brightness, incongruous against the dark.

“Strange,” Wolfram remarked. “The jet should still be ready for take off. We weren’t busy that long.”

“Could there be a problem with the engine?” Diana asked as they walked towards it. “We may need to delay our flight anyway.”

“I think--”

Diana saw nothing of it, blinded as she was by sunlight, and the world around her was curiously, suspiciously blank. She felt Wolfram’s emotions -- discomfort, then a surge of adrenaline -- and heard the crack of sound, but she couldn’t see, and didn’t feel, the emotion that accompanied what came next.

“Get down!” Wolfram cried, and grabbed for her, wrapping his arms around her tightly and crouching down. The shot skimmed past them, grazing the soldier’s shoulder, and Diana felt something between them at that moment, elating and terrifying.

_ Connection. _

_ Those fuckers couldn’t even wait, could they?  _ Wolfram’s voice sounded in her mind, firm and not too deep, and Diana fought not to drown in it, like syrup.  _ I’ve got to get her into cover. Is the pilot still alive? The flight crew? How long do we have before reload? _

“Horace!” Diana called urgently, even as her heart clenched. “We need to get inside, now.”

_ Yeah, I’m working on it,  _ sounded in her mind before he spoke aloud. “The jet might be sealed, we have to be careful.”

“I know,” Diana said, and the thought slipped out, unbidden.  _ You’ll keep me safe, I know you will. _

She felt Wolfram stiffen around her briefly, and then started to move, sheltering her, hands wrapped around her wrists, bare skin to bare skin. She was afraid, but if the situation masked the source, she would be grateful.

_ On the other hand, it might not.  _ Diana could feel his thoughts more deeply now, the connection between them running deep. His most urgent thoughts -- keeping her safe, getting to cover, getting out in case the second shot took them both -- pressed against her mind. Secondary concerns, like pain, were distracting, and Diana pushed it back without effort, tricking his mind into forgetting the wound. Immediately, he straightened.

_ That’s handy,  _ he thought as he worked, keeping himself between Diana and the shooter.  _ Would be nice to know where it’s coming from, though. _

_ Is that a hint?  _ she asked in his mind, and then sent her awareness outward. The tiny, animal minds she’d sensed earlier were gone, startled by the gunfire. She pushed through the blankness and found the mind of the sniper, mentally cursing about their failure to hit their target and readying to try again.  _ Hurry! _

“I’m  _ working  _ on it,” Wolfram muttered aloud, matching his immediate thought so well it echoed. “Can you help me?”

“Yes,” Diana said out loud, and reached into his mind. For a moment, he saw the world as she did -- a riot of psychic impressions and emotional stains -- and his breath caught. The sniper fired again, and as one, Wolfram and Diana moved left, the bullet missing them both by a hair’s breadth, striking the jet instead. “Here.”

Wolfram/Diana looked at the panel. Through his eyes, she could see the places where the security locks had been altered, though not damaged.  _ They never replace the keypad,  _ echoed through their minds together. Wolfram, one arm still around Diana, worked at the keypad, listening to her instructions as soon as they bloomed in her mind.

Slowly, far too slowly, the jet’s door unlocked, and the staircase extended.

_ Horace,  _ Diana thought, feeling rather than seeing.  _ Something’s happening. _

She pressed the thoughts into his mind: the sniper was withdrawing, but others were coming, and destruction and anger tainted their minds. Ideas birthed themselves within her consciousness in turn, that if they couldn’t take  _ her  _ out, they would do the next best thing: prevent them from leaving.

_ Here we go, nice and fast,  _ Wolfram urged her, and he rose, drawing her up with him.  _ One… two… three! _

Diana slipped out from his embrace, and the loss of contact hurt almost as much as being shot.

She tried not to dwell on it, and swung herself around, pounding up the stairs, and Wolfram was a mere moment behind, slapping the staircase closed again as soon as he could. Immediately, he ran towards the cockpit, and perhaps, considering everything that had happened, it wasn’t a surprise to see the blood, nor the spatter of brains against the far window, though the body itself was gone.

“Can you fly this thing?” Diana asked, worried. “There’s only so much I can give you!”

“Maybe? No,” Wolfram said, looking at the controls. “But the pilot did. You can tell that, right? What you did earlier--”

“We’ll have to touch again,” Diana said, swallowing. “We’ll have to stay in contact as much as possible for that kind of connection.”

“That’s probably not going to be flight regulation, but we’ll do what we need to.” Wolfram sat in the pilot’s seat, and after a moment’s hesitation, strapped himself in. He looked to Diana, and she nodded, moving to sit in his lap. His hands remained on the controls, and she leaned back, so that the connection between them, skin touching skin, was their cheeks pressed together. His breath felt warm against her ear, and he murmured to her. “Show me what to do.”

Diana couldn’t hide the thrill of emotion that the sound of his voice so close to her gave her, that he was touching her at all, and he would feel it as she would. Anticipation of what would come later, that sudden certainty, helped her push her feelings back down below the surface, and she looked at the controls. Their pilot had been a veteran, a talented woman with a great gift, and now she was gone.

_ Laiksha Donovan, I will remember you,  _ she thought, and Wolfram began to move, guided by the dead pilot’s emotional impressions. There was no horror here, no fear, which meant that the woman had been taken by surprise, a small mercy, one might suppose. Wolfram began to flick switches and check dials as though long experienced.

Moments later, the engine began to purr, then roar.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Wolfram said, keying in the commands, then leaned forward a little, around Diana, and put his hands on the stick. The jet began to rise, pushing off from the landing pad.

“Where should we go?” Diana asked aloud as her stomach lurched from the sensation. “Is it even safe back in Arizona?”

“I’m not sure,” Wolfram admitted, and their thoughts mingled, apprehension, distrust, consensus between two souls. “It might be worth laying low for a little while until I can make contact with my superiors and find out who was behind this. It could just be the Martians, angry that you didn’t just agree with them.”

“Or Ortiz sent me out here to get rid of me,” Diana murmured softly. “So, I ask again, where do we go?”

“I have an idea, there’s a base we can hide in. There aren’t many people there, usually just researchers and, you know. Penguins.”

“Penguins?” Diana asked, shifting a little, though there was no way to look him in the eye incredulously, so she just let him feel her intent. “You want to go to Antarctica?”

“Who’d look for us there?” Wolfram said, and brought the jet around, heading south. “Here we g--”

The artillery shot, barely within range, slammed into their engine and the whole plane lurched.

Unable to stop herself, Diana screamed sharply as they began to plummet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DVD Commentary Notes on Tumblr: [Chapter 2](http://ivorytowerblr.tumblr.com/post/179965347056/wh20k-fic-court-of-stars-262-epilogue)


	3. Chapter 3

Wolfram swore and struggled with the controls. Diana forced her mind to be blank, to serve as a conduit. He didn’t have time for the polite back-and-forth of usual interactions, and she didn’t want to die, not here and not now.

Laiksha’s memories were everywhere, on the seat and in the controls, and Wolfram could see them, fragments and snatches of a life extinguished, all of which was meant to guide him. There was an answer within those thoughts, one neither of them liked.

 _The engine is on fire,_ they thought, sharing it between them. _One of us needs to deal with it._

“I’ll go,” Wolfram said. “Take the controls, you can actually see the memories. Just tell me what needs to be done.”

Diana swallowed, but nodded, and put her hands over his on the controls, then took them. He let go, and she felt them buck immediately. Memory was on her side, but upper body strength was not. Behind her, she felt Wolfram scramble to unstrap himself, and he slipped out from behind her, the touch electric, but very brief.

She sat, and focused on not dying.

The instruments she saw made very little sense to her, but they had to their former pilot. She had been fighter class, and performed swift, daring attacks against the Iron Men before the war was over. She had a husband, and children, daughters who had beautiful wives and a passel of children thanks to in-vitro fertilization and a variety of donors, many of whom were from the military.

 _I’m sorry,_ Diana thought to the memories, even as her fingers worked to stabilize the jet, gripping the stick as tightly as she could as the plane bucked. _I’m so sorry she isn’t coming home._

She could feel Wolfram running through the jet, going to the engine compartment. Diana could sense the way he moved with the rocking of the ship, striding quickly, making his way to the source of the fire, and forced her attention back to the deceased pilot’s memories.

Laiksha’s impressions of Diana herself reared up -- small, ethereal, and strange -- and Wolfram -- tall, strong, though rather young for the honours he had -- and then sank beneath the surface again.

“Horace, there should be fire extinguishers near the engine block,” Diana called through the comm system. “After that, there are safety bypasses. We’re still heading south.”

 _Keep going,_ she felt, rather than heard. _All the way out. It’s winter there, so it’s not going to be pretty, but we’ll make it. I know we can._

“I know that too,” she said, half to herself, and waited. It took time, longer than she would have liked, for the plane to stabilize. The read out from their left side engine was not positive, but neither was it on fire. Diana took a breath in relief.

Wolfram appeared a few moments later, announcing himself by touching her shoulder. “We did it. We’re alive.”

“We are,” Diana said, and dared to glance at him. “Your arm--”

“It’s fine, I have it tended to,” Wolfram said. “Though it’s nice not to feel it. Better than morphine.”

Guilt flashed up through her, and he sat in the co-pilot’s seat. “Horace, you know what has to happen, don’t you?”

“We can’t worry about that now,” he replied. “We have to survive, to tell people about what the Martians are doing.”

“I feel like Bilaraat was hiding something,” Diana said softly. “I didn’t… I think I knew he was angry at my refusal to support him out of hand, but this… I didn’t expect this.”

“I don’t think this was spontaneous,” Wolfram said slowly, sitting back. “I don’t think they just happened to have the means to kill us. I don’t think they took out our pilot and sealed the jet just in case you said no. I think something’s up, something dangerous. Something bad.”

“I think you’re right,” Diana replied. “I think there’s a lot more to Project Servitor than we’d believed... but then the question becomes, who else is ignorant of it? Is Ortiz? Are your superiors?”

“You would be able to find out, wouldn’t you?” Wolfram asked. “You can tell if people are lying to you.”

“You can too, now,” she said, focusing on the controls. “It will take time to use it on your own, that’s why it’s easier for me to act through you. Horace, I…”

“I saved your life, and you saved mine,” he said, and the command of his tone forced her gaze towards him, his handsome, determined face, the resolve in his steel visage. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

 _They’re going to take me from you, just like they’ve taken everyone else,_ Diana thought sadly. _I don’t want to lose you, not now._

“You won’t,” Wolfram said softly. “I won’t let them. I’d let the whole damn world burn first.”

Diana shivered, and turned her attention away from him. “So, our pilot didn’t know where this secret Antarctic base is. It’s not in her memories.”

“I know where it is,” Wolfram said, letting the topic shift. “I can show you, is it easier if we..?”

“It is, yes,” Diana said, and then admitted, “as much because I like being touched as anything else.”

“Set it to auto-pilot for a minute, and I’ll show you,” Wolfram said. Diana did so, and then stood. The cockpit was small, and her minder -- bodyguard, soulmate -- had to move in behind her, and as he sat, wrapped his arm around her waist, guiding her down to rest against his chest. Faintly, he smelled of blood, of sweat, of smoke, and she wrapped it around her like a cloak. “It’s going to be a long flight, we should get comfortable.”

“I’m… fairly comfortable, but I’d like to be _more_ comfortable,” she murmured, pushing back apprehension. Wolfram shifted her just so, allowing him one arm to reach the stick, while the other stayed around her waist. On autopilot, he didn’t need to do anything other than watch the instruments, so he took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together.

Wolfram pressed his lips to her ear. “Comfortable enough?” he murmured.

Diana turned her head and, from one heartbeat to the next, she kissed him, pressing her mouth into his, as though she were drowning and his lips the only source of air. His hand squeezed hers tightly, and she leaned into the kiss, moaning softly.

The kiss lasted for thirty one seconds before the instruments beeped, a warning that they were now over the ocean, and on their way.

“Soon,” Diana breathed. “I want you soon.”

“You’ll have me,” Wolfram promised. “Once we’re on the ground again.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Diana murmured, and in response, Wolfram kissed her again.

~ * ~

“Tell me what kind of base this is,” Diana asked, peering down at the display. “I’ll admit, I didn’t think the military had much interest in the south pole.”

“This is primarily a scientific outpost,” Wolfram said, tracing his fingers gently against her stomach. Diana found it wonderfully distracting, all things considered. “It’s used as an affiliation-neutral location to store data about global temperatures, weather patterns, and ocean levels. It receives information from other data collection sites around the world and weather observation satellites.”

“That makes sense,” Diana said. “Considering the politicization of climate change in the past, making sure that information is as free and open to all as much as possible is important.”

Wolfram nodded, and brushed his lips against her neck. “I’ll admit I don’t understand most of it, but I do know that the measures we’ve taken to preserve the polar ice caps and clean the atmosphere of toxins has been successful, so long as we keep everything running. If they fail…”

“At least we have many more options than we used to,” Diana said, and made a soft, pleased noise. “We can get resources from off-world and apply the knowledge we used to get there to those worlds, instead of leaving devastation and ruin in our wake. We can preserve Earth as important to us too.”

“The base here isn’t Merican, it’s part of an international coalition dedicated to global safety, so in theory we’ll be well taken care of here.” Diana felt hope and worry flash through Wolfram, and she squeezed his hand tightly. “It also means that if Ortiz or my superiors are in on it, they’ll have a harder time exercising their influence over these scientists and their protectors.”

“I sincerely hope that’s the case,” Diana said softly, and took a deep breath. “So how do we get in?”

“Once we’re in range I’ll transmit authorization,” Wolfram said. “I’ve worked with them before, and unless things have changed, they also don’t have surface-to-air missiles, so we should be pretty safe.”

“They can just choose to not let us in so we can freeze to death,” Diana pointed out, and Wolfram smiled, shaking his head.

“Yes, there’s that, too. Just take us in and we’ll work things out from there.”

Diana sat back in Wolfram’s arms, glancing between the displays. She keyed up the outward-aimed camera, taking in the sight of the icy landscape below. Gauges indicated temperatures plummeting past minus fifty degrees celsius, and high speed winds.

“I hope their landing pad is inside,” Diana murmured, and she felt a memory flash up, of a huge, enclosed dome. “I guess so.”

“There is, yes,” Wolfram agreed. “It’s winter here, so there won’t be very many scientists, but there are always a few to keep things running. We’ll be welcome there.”

Diana nodded, and waited for the ping-back from the jet’s scanning equipment to give them a solid hit. It reminded her of a submarine identifying masses in the water, or a bat echolocating, though this had more detail than mere object avoidance.

The terrain below them was rocky and elevated, devoid of so much of the trappings of civilization. Here, at least, politics could be set aside, and the information gathered would be available to all who needed it instead of being secreted away, hoarded by spymasters or shadowy government agencies.

Antarctica was free, at the cost of being abysmally cold.

Diana wasn’t cold, however: the points of contact between herself and Wolfram warmed her, making her feel flush, and their prolonged contact conveyed information back and forth easily. So much so that she didn’t need him to tell her when they could reach the base, nor the codes that would permit them entry into the landing dome.

Instead, each piece of information was simply in her mind, waiting for her, just as Wolfram guided their hands, piloting them down towards their safe haven.

Already, Laiksha’s memories were fading from the controls, replaced instead by the overwhelming sense of Horace Wolfram, and even as Diana felt a shiver of anticipation, matched by the man entwined with her, she was also afraid.

_What if..?_

What if, indeed. What if she had projected her desires onto him? She had shown him a fantasy entirely accidentally once, why not again? Why not continuously? There was a reason this kind of contact was forbidden, explicitly noted as being dangerous. She could feel Wolfram shift, sensing her unease, sharing in it.

“Military Craft Zero-Two-Seven-Thirteen-Fifty, welcome to Ecopoint Delta,” called a voice, and Wolfram smiled. “We’ll meet you at the door.”

“Roger that, Ecopoint Delta,” Wolfram said, breath warm against her skin. “We’ll see you soon.”

“This is about as much as I can manage,” Diana said, indicating the panels as she guided their approach downward. “The memories are fading.”

“I know, I can feel it,” Wolfram murmured. “You see the world so strangely, don’t you?”

“I do, but… it’s a way of seeing I’m proud of, that I’ve honed,” Diana replied. “People leave their mark everywhere, in all that they do. It’s… fascinating, actually.”

“I think you underestimate, sometimes, the mark you make too,” Wolfram said. “The way people remember you.”

“The only people who are allowed to remember me are the people that see me as a threat.” She sat up a little, pulling from the point of conflict. The sense of Wolfram’s mind eased a fraction, and she forced herself to focus on their former pilot’s remaining memories.

Around her, she remembered that their jet had one engine that had not failed due to sheer luck, and the memorial of a woman who hadn’t deserved to die. She let those memories douse her emotions in ice water.

 _You need to focus and do your job,_ she told herself sternly. _There isn’t time for anything else._

The rest of the flight in was silent, with only hints of movement between minute adjustments and Wolfram shifting, concern and discomfort radiating from his form. Diana refused to look, pushing her senses forward, trying to sense the dome before she saw it.

There was life here, different than her senses were used to, but life nonetheless.

There were animals here, surviving the extreme temperatures of Earth’s most southern points, and lower, baser intelligences. There were spots of intelligence, bright sparks illuminating the perpetual night.

It was there she guided them and, with less than one hundred metres to go, the dome opened, allowing them passage.

“And here we are,” Wolfram said. “Give them a moment to close the dome.”

Diana nodded and waited as the last of Laiksha’s memories faded into nothingness. When they were gone, she stood, taking a deep breath and pacing away from the controls, back towards the exit to the cockpit.

Wolfram, she could sense, was staring at her, confused, concerned, and wondering what he’d done wrong, so suddenly, after things had been so right.

 _This isn’t the time to explain,_ Diana thought to herself, and tapped the door open, then closed it behind her again. _Not when we won’t have the chance to discuss it properly._

Much of the jet was cold, the chill of the Antarctic seeping in, even within the dome, though that would cut them off from the wind soon enough. Diana let her hand rest on the seats that she had started the journey in. She could see her own thought patterns, swirling like a kaleidoscope: anticipation, worry, her brief, potentially fateful, fantasy about Wolfram.

“Nothing is ever easy, is it?” she asked of her past self, only hours younger. She was not forthcoming about this matter, nor any other.

Touching Wolfram’s seat brought back a brief flush of his attraction and embarrassment from earlier, a sensation that was in some ways comforting, but in others, very worrying.

 _It’s how he felt before we made physical contact, but… how much of that was from my own projection? Is there any way to untangle it now?_ Diana sighed, and straightened. _He thought I was attractive when we first met, but that doesn’t prove any kind of interest and intent for… more._

_I want you, soon._

_You’ll have me, as soon as we’re on the ground._

Diana squeezed her eyes closed, and a moment later, she heard knocking on the side of the jet. She stood back, and watched the hatch open, cold air gusting in. She clutched at herself, clinging as her dress flapped violently in the wind. Wolfram came out of the cockpit, and moved to stand by her side, shielding his face.

“Well, someone didn’t dress for the weather,” boomed out a cheerful voice. “Welcome to Ecopoint Delta. Here, have a coat.”

Diana felt the brush of cheerful, positive emotions a moment afterwards, as real as any a person had ever felt, and looked over. A stout, dark-skinned woman was already removing her coat, and offered it to Diana, draping it over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” Diana said, her teeth chattering. She pulled the coat around her, and felt the brush of comradeship, curiosity, and genuine friendship. “This is something of an emergency landing. My name is Diana Tyler, and this is my companion, Captain Horace Wolfram.”

“Ma’am,” Wolfram said, nodding to her. “I directed us here, I knew there was a military base nearby.”

“This is more of a research station, but yes, we do have military personnel here,” the woman replied. “My name is Doctor Nihma Singh. Let’s get you inside, so you don’t freeze, and-- you’re injured, it seems.”

“We’ll explain what we can,” Diana said, smiling. “...once we’re warm.”

“Of course, of course,” Doctor Singh said, grinning broadly. “Come inside, we’ll get you some tea, and have our doctor take a look at both of you.”

Diana exchanged a long look with Wolfram, and nodded. The doctor bustled from the jet, and gestured to a pair of military personnel just outside. They nodded to Diana, and Wolfram held up a hand, halting them, and leaned in briefly to speak.

It would have been easy to find out what they were saying, but she kept her mind away from the conversation, instead focusing on the doctor.

 _Of all the people I wouldn’t have thought to be here…_ Doctor Singh was warm. From the hard-packed streets of the Delhi Hivespires baking in the sun to the level of concern she felt for total strangers, the woman’s presence felt like standing outside on a fine summer’s day.

It made Diana think of her meditation program, and she couldn’t help but smile.

“I hope what you’re finding in there is helpful,” Doctor Singh said cheerfully, and Diana started. “You’re a telepath, aren’t you?”

“H-how did you..?” A cursory look at the doctor’s mind indicated no such shared powers. “Did you feel it?”

“No, no,” her companion replied, laughing. “But I recognize that look. I’ve worked with a telepath or two before, mostly in Delhi. We were working on how to predict natural disasters and systematic destruction caused by the Iron Men before the end of the war. My specialty, and his. A good man.”

“I don’t suppose he survived the war?” Diana asked, her voice soft. “So few of us did, and I may not have if I’d joined in any earlier.”

“No,” Doctor Singh said, shaking her head, the sun moving behind a cloud. “He was lost during one of the last major attacks in China. A great loss, I did like Surya.”

The name tingled across Diana’s nerves, though she couldn’t think why. “I’m sorry, is that… why you’re all the way out here?”

“You’re wondering what someone like me is doing in Antarctica?” Doctor Singh asked, and then laughed. “Oh, I like it here. Yes, it’s cold, and we don’t get sunlight for months at a time, but the companionship is good, the science is fun, and I get to meet fine people like you.”

“I suppose you do,” Diana said, smiling. “Thank you for taking us in, coming to meet us like this. You must be busy.”

“This is the quiet time, actually,” her companion said, waving her arm as they moved out of the dome and into what Diana, who was mostly unfamiliar with such, would refer to as an airlock. “We’re only at one quarter staff during the winter months in Antarctica, so much of our workload is diminished. We make observations, we record data. We share stories and watch movies. We have a medical doctor here -- Angela, you’ll love her -- and a few ecologists and technicians. It’s my job to keep the data flowing, and make sure no one goes stir crazy.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Diana said as the doors close behind them, and the airlock heated briefly, up to a cool, but not uncomfortable, temperature. “I’ve heard historically there are some challenges about people’s health and safety.”

“You mean that old story about the doctor who had to operate on himself?” Doctor Singh asked, and the second airlock door opened, leading them into a hallway. “Nowadays, we have emergency craft that can quickly move people even through the worst storms. We also have a second medical doctor to help us, and we’ve had some very promising test results from cryogenic freezing.”

“That sounds like some kind of wild, speculative fiction,” Wolfram remarked from behind them. “Suspended animation, freezing people in pods?”

“I’m psychic, and we just left a facility where they clone people,” Diana pointed out. “We’re already in the territory of wild, speculative fiction.”

“...cloning people?” Doctor Singh asked wonderingly. “Now, that strikes me as a story to be told over a nice cup of tea.”

“We will,” Diana assured her. “Though, tea sounds lovely. I think we’ve been going for… some time, at this point. If I think about it, I’ll probably pass out.”

“Is that so? Then you should give me the bare bones and then get some rest. We have plenty of spare sleeping space.” Doctor Singh clapped her hands together, and ushered the pair through the halls. Here and there, Diana could feel the personnel of the research station, in some cases still present but behind thick walls, while others were mere impressions.

Nihma Singh was, to Diana’s senses, the most present in this facility. Traces of her were everywhere, and all of it felt positive to Diana, rays of sunshine on a clear day. Fleetingly, she sensed her checking on a scientist that had taken ill, or assisting a technician by holding a cart in place. She went everywhere, asking for reports and listening to them with a serious air, caring about what her staff had to say at all times.

That the woman was in Antarctica, instead of working on Project Xavier, or even Project Servitor, seemed like a great crime.

 _Though, would a project like this survive with someone as cold-blooded as Ortiz running it? Here, where isolation keeps people from friends and family, so they_ need _that sunlight in their lives? Is having such a small staff what allows Nihma to stay so positive?_

Diana mused to herself as she was led into a small cafeteria. There, a pair of women -- one tall, slender, and blonde while the other was short, plump, and dark haired -- were deep in conversation.

“Angela! Mei!” Doctor Singh called out. “We have guests. Angela, could you tend to Captain Wolfram’s arm? Mei, put the kettle on, it’s your turn to make tea.”

“Oh!” Mei cried out, hurrying to get to work. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Please, Captain, this way,” Angela said, gesturing. “It’s more sanitary to take care of this in the treatment room.”

Wolfram nodded, and smiled at the doctor. Diana felt her heart squeeze painfully, and then forced it back.

“You should sit,” Doctor Singh said to Diana, and she nodded, sitting down. “Just return my coat to me when you’re more warmly dressed, you need it for now.”

Diana nodded, and wrapped the coat around her more tightly. “Thank you for all of your kindness and generosity. I’ve never felt more welcome.”

“Happy to help,” Doctor Singh said, smiling broadly. “If you haven’t slept… have you eaten?”

“No,” Diana admitted. “This whole experience wasn’t supposed to have happened.”

“It did sound fairly serious,” her companion agreed readily, and seated herself in one of the chairs, stretching back comfortably. “Drink your tea, and when Angela is done with your…”

“Bodyguard,” Diana said. “And my minder. I’m not supposed to be wandering off on my own, but my status in the larger state of affairs means less in the way of direct control.”

“A good thing, to be sure,” Doctor Singh said, frowning. “Though, I’ve never liked the way psychics have been treated. I feel as though the emergence is happening for a reason.”

“We’ve been studying it, and the results are inconclusive.” Diana sat forward a little. “As far as we can tell, psychic humans began to appear on all human-occupied worlds during the first third of the Expansion Age. Stories, very old ones, held tales of supernatural beings -- monsters, demons, titans -- that captured the human imagination for centuries. As a civilization, we have risen and fallen, spent whole eras simply needing to preserve Earth for our own habitation before we discovered the secrets of the Warp.”

“Our ability to skim in and out of reality is incredible, and I can’t help but think it might all be connected,” Doctor Singh said. “Surya spoke of… he said being a psychic is dangerous and unpredictable.”

“It can be, when uncontrolled and untrained, but we’ve long grown past the age of witch-hunts,” Diana said, frowning. “Most of the disasters that we’ve experienced come from people who simply don’t know they’re psychic. I’ve spoken to people who… well, they had grown up feeling different from their peers, bullied, tormented, in poverty or within the lowest castes of their individual societies. Neurodivergence was common among them as well -- depression, anxiety, executive function disorder, autism -- and it often made them feel worse. In two senses, they didn’t view the world as anyone else did. It made it so much harder for them to get help.”

“But not you, obviously,” Doctor Singh observed. “Either that, or you wear it very well.”

“I’m a rare case,” Diana admitted. “My family was wealthy, and I was well-educated. When I saw things other people didn’t see, or heard thoughts, I sought out as much information as possible. When I eliminated, one by one, the things I wasn’t, I started to learn what I was. It took time, and resources that most psychics never get to possess. I’ve made it my business to help as many psychics as I can, including helping to end the war.”

“A noble goal, for a brave woman,” Doctor Singh said, and her approval warmed Diana considerably. “I’d like to think we’re all trying to help the world in our own way, and humanity as a whole, with our work. Not that it’s always easy.”

“There are plenty of nice, easy things,” Diana said, sighing. “Unfortunately, they rarely leave the mark on the world that we hope they will.”

“A lot of the ethics stuff is confusing to me,” Wolfram said from the doorway. Diana looked up at him, biting back a gasp. It wasn’t as though he’d changed _that_ much -- his shirt had been stripped from him, and he bore a clean bandage around his bicep -- but seeing him in only an undershirt, the shape of his dog tags visible under the taut fabric, caused her resolve to waver briefly. “But that’s why Diana’s the brains, and I’m the muscle.”

“A fine pair in any situation,” Doctor Singh said, her gaze suddenly knowing. “Come, sit down. I want to know all about what’s going on.”

“Not without tea,” Mei declared, carrying over the steaming mugs, all of them brightly coloured in red, green, gold, and white. She smiled shyly at Diana, and set down a mug next to her. “I didn’t know what you would want with it, so that tray’s coming next.”

“I can get it,” Angela said, sweeping past her. “You’re busy.”

“Thank you,” Mei said, and set the second down mug next to her supervisor, then turned back to retrieve the others. “I’m all ears.”

The next few moments, once Angela returned with the tray, were spent making cups of tea to everyone’s liking. Diana inhaled her cup, the liquid fragrant and pleasant, albeit with the addition of milk and sugar, and took a fortifying sip. It moved through her, warming her like a pair of hands along her skin.

 _If tea weren’t already immensely popular as a drink, I would be more than happy to confirm the real, emotional impact of a good cup of tea,_ Diana thought, and steadied herself. “So, I suppose the simplest place to start is that the government is looking to find a replacement for the severe labour shortage resulting from the end of the war with the Iron Men.”

“Because we spent a long time relying on them to do our work for us, and then even more fighting them?” Angela suggested, crossing one arm over her stomach, while she held her mug carefully. “There have been rumours, of course, of replacing them, but with what…”

“Right now, any more artificial intelligence matrices are completely out of the question,” Diana said, gesturing with her free hand. “Even I’m not sure what provoked the change in the Iron Men from obedient AI to infuriated robot overlords, it was well before my time, but the generally accepted wisdom is that the central processing core that birthed them was compromised.”

“That’s a little terrifying,” Mei admitted. “I mean, I have my own little companion robot, but he works as an assistant who responds to my voice commands, not independently. It would be so strange if he started acting on his own… if he hated me.”

“Snowball would never do that,” Angela said softly, putting her hand on Mei’s shoulder. “He’s an assistant. I have machines in the lab.”

 _Interesting,_ Diana thought, observing the swirl of emotions between them. “In any case, progress has been made to try and find an alternative, made all the more urgent now that the war is over and we have so much reconstruction that needs to be done. One of the proposals, one of the more popular ones as a whole, was to create, in essence, biological robots.”

“Androids?” Doctor Singh guessed.

“Cyborgs?” Angela suggested with a frown.

“Zombies?!” Mei exclaimed.

“Mei is technically the closest,” Diana said. “They wanted to lobotomize death-row prisoners, criminals of the worst kind. Dangerous men and women who could serve no purpose in society other than this one. The trouble is, there aren’t enough of them. Not for what they want.”

“I don’t think that’s unfortunate,” Doctor Singh said, frowning. “Nor do I like where this is going.”

“Well, you heard the punchline earlier, didn’t you?” Wolfram said, leaning against the wall heavily. “They brought in the Martians, and they started work on vat-grown humans. Clones, though there’s something wrong with them.”

“I was brought in on this because, among my various psychic gifts, I can confirm the presence of the human soul,” Diana said. “It’s… something unique to experience, but I can see your souls. Machines don’t have them, though inanimate object all carry residue of those who handle them regularly. These clones… they weren’t like humans, despite how they looked. They weren’t even like infants, either. They were something more. Something worse. The lead scientist told me they existed to be programmed, organic machines.”

“That is… troubling, certainly, from an ethical standpoint,” Angela said, frowning, tapping her finger against her mug. “I’ve had arguments about the ethics of certain kind of medical treatments in the past. A good portion of why I prefer being here.”

“It’s a lot to consider, but it’s remarkable how little of that matters now,” Diana said. “Because the project director tried to have me killed rather than leave and report in to my superiors.”

“Which is how I got injured,” Wolfram said, indicating his arm. “Though we don’t think it was solely based on Diana’s decision. Our pilot was dead before we left the compound, her body moved. So we think she was always a target.”

“If it weren’t for my unique talents, we would both be dead,” Diana said. “I believe they underestimated my talents as a psychic, or they were completely ignorant of them, and that surprises me, considering they tried to kill me.”

“Or they underestimated your bodyguard,” Mei said. “Or they only knew you from a report.”

“None of those things are particularly comforting,” Diana said, sighing. “So, we need to get back to Merica, and we need to do so soon enough to stop Project Servitor. I want to know why this happened and who was responsible.” Her fingers reached up, touching along the collar around her neck. “I resent being told that I’m dangerous by people who see the lives of others as nothing.”

“That’s quite a story,” Doctor Singh said, frowning. “We’ll do what we can, of course. I can get you a pilot, though I don’t know how attached you are to your current vehicle.”

“It kept us alive, but I feel like, more importantly, the forensic evidence of how our pilot died is worth keeping, though who knows how they’ll spin that.” Diana closed her eyes briefly. She could sense their concern, not that they were hiding it. Wide eyes and bitten lips, a swirl of emotion like fog rolling past a window. “Right now, though, we’ve been awake a long time and I’m… exhausted. The tea has helped but I do need sleep.”

“And to eat, most like.” Their host nodded decisively. “Finish your tea, and I’ll show you where you can sleep. One of the nice things about this place is that everyone gets the privacy they need, and a lot of rooms are clean and empty.”

“You’re very generous, Nihma, thank you,” Diana said, smiling. “It’s nice to feel safe.”

“Of course,” Doctor Singh said, smiling in return. “It’s the least we can do. Drink.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Diana said, falsely meek, and sipped at her tea. She let her gaze drift over them and her senses extend.

Nihma Singh was troubled by what she’d heard, but not disbelieving. She was curious about the extent of Diana’s skills, and memories of her old friend, Surya, flickered through her mind. Diana could see him, vaguely, his dark skin and long, black hair, the square structure of his jaw, though more than that seemed beyond even the doctor’s memory.

Here was a woman who cared, genuinely and deeply, about the people around her. Angela and Mei were good friends, old hands at the winter quiet time, a medical doctor and a climatologist to help protect Earth from itself and any outside threat.

While the other staff weren’t present, Diana could feel smudges of their influence, and… it was not perfect, not here. Personalities clashed, professionals disagreed, but there was no fear here, no simmering resentment. The scientists and professionals that worked here were happy, and their supervisor was as much responsible for that as anything else.

 _This is a good place, for all it’s so cold and remote,_ Diana thought. _I hope it always remains so. The work done here is so valuable._

Diana nursed her tea for another fifteen minutes, listening as the scientists chatted among themselves. Wolfram remained standing, leaning as he sipped his tea, his expression that of a man who was out of his depth, but admiring nonetheless. She caught his gaze across the room and smiled, encouraging.

When he smiled back, she felt the entirety of her stomach turn to water.

“I think that’s about as much tea as I can manage,” Wolfram said, and pushed off the wall to set his cup down on the tray. “Where should we be staying?”

“I’ll show you,” Doctor Singh said, rising with a grunt of effort. “Not as young as I used to be.”

“Don’t worry,” Mei said. “We’ll clean up.”

“Ah, thank you,” the scientist replied, and clasped her friend’s arm. Diana couldn’t help but feel a little envious of it, the ease of touching another person without fearing for them.

Wolfram’s gaze was on her, and she felt warm and cold by turns.

Doctor Singh gestured to both of them, ushering them out of the room as though herding children, and Diana couldn’t help but smile at the sensation of pride at helping others, and fondness for those around her. She sensed speculation about the relationship between the scientist’s guests, but not judgement, something Diana appreciated greatly.

“As I said, we have plenty of empty rooms,” Doctor Singh said as she bustled down the hall, her pace steady and sure. “So long as you don’t mind some of the rooms being a bit cold. I can turn the heaters on easily enough, but it will take time for the room to warm up.”

“I don’t mean to be too demanding,” Diana said. “But is there any chance of some warmer, more appropriate clothes? I’m afraid I came dressed for warmer weather.”

“I think that can be arranged too,” Doctor Singh assured her. “You might have to borrow some spare things from Angela, she’s about your size, and Captain Wolfram will need to speak to one of the stationed military, but we’ll manage it. Don’t you worry.”

“Thank you,” Diana said. “A thousand times, thank you.”

“Don’t you fret,” the scientist said, and paused at a door. “Here we are.”

Briskly, Doctor Singh unlocked the door and opened it. Almost immediately, Diana felt cold air gust towards her and she shivered, tugging the coat closer still. Their host moved into the room, turning on lights and adjusting the brightness, then activated the heater with a woosh.

Diana exhaled with relief, and stepped into the room. It was stripped down, empty and distressingly clean. She could feel only the faintest hints of old occupants, various individuals with strong opinions and personalities. She looked over at the bed, noting that there were no sheets or blankets, and a pair of pillows without cases stacked at the head of it, and glanced towards their host.

“There’s a chest with all of your bedclothes in it,” Doctor Singh said. “You’ll need to make your own bed, but I’m sure you can manage.”

“We can,” Wolfram said. “Thank you. You can leave this to us.”

“Of course,” the older woman said, knowingly. “Sleep well.”

“We will,” Diana said as Doctor Singh left the room. “Thank you again.”

The sound of the door, a soft click by any normal measure of such sounds, felt too loud to Diana.

Wolfram moved into the room behind her, brushing up against her back, his hands resting on her hips to hold her in place as he moved past. Immediately, the room felt as though it had warmed by degrees, the heat of his touch lingering even after he’d walked to the foot of the bed.

“I found what she meant,” he called, and tugged at a large, plastic chest, pulling the lid off with a mere flex of his arms. Wolfram set the lid down, and began pulling out sheets and blankets. “It’s an efficient system, I feel.”

“It is, it means we can just… make the bed.” Diana smiled tentatively, and moved to the bed. The next few minutes were occupied with fitting a sheet to the bed, wrestling with it as well as moving the pillows to various, more convenient locations until Diana simply picked them up, put the pillowcases on them, and put them in the plastic chest. Wolfram, meanwhile, spread the sheet out on the bed, then two layers of blankets designed to keep heat in, not unlike a sleeping bag.

Diana placed the pillows back where they belonged, which brought their brief adventure to a close. Wolfram walked around the bed, and stopped in front of her.

“Diana…” Wolfram said, studying her expression before meeting her gaze. “Soon is now.”

He was so very, very close to her, radiating warmth into the still-cold room. Wolfram was a tall man, a little over a head taller than she was, a fact that had made her feel giddy when she had been sitting in his lap back in the jet, safe and protected even now.

Diana could sense his emotions, too, his desire a swirl of deep colours over his heart, head, and groin, speckled with concern and hope. She could feel her soul reach out to his, to intertwine herself with him inexorably. Wolfram reached out, resting his hands on her upper arms, ready to draw her in.

“Horace…” she began. “I need…”

“Yes?” he breathed, leaning in. “Diana, you’re so beautiful, I--”

“I need… I need you to say no to me.” Wolfram stared at her, uncomprehending. “I’ve told you about my psychic gifts, how they work. In the most serious of cases, people can’t resist me. They can’t disagree with me, so I need you to say no to me, right now.”

“Why would I say no to you?” Wolfram asked, bringing his hand up, almost touching her cheek before she moved her head. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, you’re kind, you’re passionate, you care about people. You’re not controlling me right now. Why would you ever?”

“Horace, _please,”_ Diana said urgently. “I need to be sure.”

Wolfram took a deep breath, and took a step back from her. “No. Not tonight. I’m going… to find out about those clothes, and a second room.”

Diana watched hurt swirl through him, and she felt a stab against her heart. She curled her fingers as she pressed her hand to her chest to avoid reaching out to him. “We both… need a good night’s sleep, I think.”

“We do,” Wolfram said. “Goodnight, Diana. Sleep well.”

“You… you too,” she replied, and watched him go, shutting the door behind him. She sat on the bed abruptly, a puppet with cut strings, and fell to the side immediately afterwards, making a muffled screaming sound into the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DVD Commentary Notes on Tumblr: [Chapter 3](http://ivorytowerblr.tumblr.com/post/180093010741/wh20k-fic-court-of-stars-part-362-epilogue)


	4. Chapter 4

When Diana slept, she often had dreams that were impressions from unguarded minds of those around her.

She could feel Wolfram lying awake in another room, laying on top of the blanket in the cold chamber, staring up at the ceiling. She could sense their host, returning to her own tasks and thinking about her guests. She could sense the heightened awareness of the soldiers that were on duty, while others relaxed and prepared for their own sleep.

Angela and Mei, it seemed, had moved on to other business.

Diana sensed, rather than heard, someone bring in clothes for her and set them on top of the now-empty plastic case. As her mind drifted, she felt other things, thoughts and emotions mixing in with fears and worries about what had happened.

_ Did Ortiz know I was going to be targeted by the Martians? Why did they decide to kill us before I’d made my decision? Who else knows about this? _

Doubts and fears crawled across her mindscape like spiders, like ants. Little insect soldiers in their shining black carapaces, scuttling from place to place, protecting their queen, protecting their home. Their minds were small, their purpose simple. They were searching, hunting, seeking.

_ We’ve seen the jet. We know they’re here. Just tell us where they are. _

In an instant, Diana was awake, staring wildly into the darkness as her heart pounded against her ribcage.

_ They’ve found us, and I don’t know who the ‘they’ are in this case.  _ Diana fingered at the collar around her neck, then dropped her hand. Instead, she pushed her blankets back and rolled out of bed, finding the floor much less frigid than she had when she’d managed to get herself out of her clothes before attempting to sleep properly.

Even in the dark, Diana found the clothing that had been left for her and changed into it, letting the feeling of warmth envelop her, however briefly, in comfort.

_ I have to figure out what’s going on before I get carried away with paranoia and fear,  _ Diana thought, gathering up her dress and folding it as best she could, then tucked the bundle of cloth under her arm. Nihma Singh’s coat was gone, and she had to assume that it had been taken away when her clothes had been brought.

The first step, of course, was getting to Wolfram without alerting anyone else.

Diana moved to the door and let her senses spread out. The little soldier ants were moving through the hallway towards where she’d sensed the offices. She had to wait and she did, doing her best to be patient. She focused on the hallway, breathing slowly and evenly.

There were two of them, moving back and forth in long circuits, trying to determine where their quarry was hiding, while others kept going until they were outside an office.

_ I need to time this just right,  _ Diana thought.  _ I also need to make sure I’m going in the right direction to find Horace. There must be… _

There was, of course. She could turn off her collar and find him nearly instantly. They had a connection. They had  _ the  _ connection. It was not something Diana should be doing, ethically speaking. She didn’t have Wolfram’s permission, he was not aware of that extent of her powers.

_ What kind of person am I if I abandon my morals simply because things are difficult? _

Diana let her forehead rest against the door, letting the cool sensation clear her thoughts. She could feel the patrol moving towards the offices, and, if all remained logical, she would be able to hurry the other way and be out of sight by the time they returned.

_ Three… two… one… now!  _ Diana opened the door and peeked out, finding her first presumption to be entirely correct: soldiers dressed in dark clothing, with heavy vests over their chests, were walking with their backs turned to her door. As quietly as she could, Diana hurried in the opposite direction, touching each door lightly as she went.

From each door she could sense whether or not the room was occupied, and if the sensation was strong enough, she could even determine how long ago the occupant had been within. Most of the rooms were empty, and as her borrowed boots padded against the floor, a sense of urgency gripped her.

_ What if I can’t find him in time and they see me?  _ Diana thought frantically.  _ What if I get us both caught instead of waiting. What if-- _

Diana’s fingers made contact with a door so briefly it was as though it had disappeared into thin air. A strong hand gripped her wrist. She opened her mouth to cry out and another hand slapped over her mouth. Warmth and weight pinned her to the wall next to the door as it closed silently.

It all happened so quickly, and from one moment to the next, she met the gaze of Horace Wolfram, and stopped struggling.

Rather than move his hand, Wolfram touched his forehead to hers, and their thoughts meshed together like intertwined fingers.

_ There are people here,  _ she told him.  _ Looking for us. _

_ I thought so,  _ he said.  _ I heard people in the hall while I was awake. _

_ You didn’t sleep?  _ she asked him, her mind’s voice chiding.  _ You need to be alert. _

_ I  _ am  _ alert,  _ he replied.  _ As evidenced by the fact you didn’t even see it coming, and you’re a telepath. _

Diana felt the rush of embarrassment through her, and pressed her regret into his mind.  _ I need you to understand-- _

_ I  _ don’t  _ understand, but there isn’t time to discuss this now,  _ Wolfram said, shifting a little.  _ We can talk about it when we’re both safe. We need to get out of here. If someone turned us in… _

_ I can’t tell, not with my gifts restricted as they are,  _ Diana said, and she felt his disbelief.  _ I know that I seem powerful to you right now, but there’s more than that. A lot more. _

_ So what do I do?  _ Wolfram shifted a little, alert.  _ Just take the collar off? _

_ I can’t tell you,  _ Diana said, and confusion and annoyance flashed through him.  _ I can’t suggest any course of action that would lead to a sympathetic party removing the restrictions from my person. I can’t give instructions because I was never given them myself. _

Wolfram’s thoughts were silent a moment.  _ That’s messed up, sweetheart. _

The nickname thrilled through her so deeply that his hips shifted, and her fingers curled.  _ I can show you a memory of mine, if you let me. _

_ Yeah,  _ Wolfram replied.  _ I want to see it. _

The tests had gone on for months. Every secret pried open, every lock turned. They had her now, and she was before them, willing and cooperative, even if she found the whole process exhausting.

_ Poking and prodding isn’t my idea of a good time,  _ she thought, feeling the chill of the metal table through her thin gown.  _ Just this one last time. _

She remembered the doctor who stood over her. It wasn’t Ortiz -- they hadn’t met yet -- but he was nonetheless introduced to her. She remembered the way his smile didn’t reach his eyes, the way he explained what needed to be done, and how, and why.

She definitely remembered that he had been lying, an attempt to fool her into believing that he was to be her doctor. She remembered seeing that lie in his mind and then reaching out, stretching past him. She remembered her senses skipping out, through the orderlies who had prepared her and brought her here to the technicians who had built her collar, and from them, to the man who had given them the specifications.

She never learned his name. She never saw him again.

Diana still knew the man’s mind because she was inside it. They feared her. She was too powerful. They had seen the Iron Men, deadly and vast in their destructive capabilities. They had seen the pyrokinetics and the phase-shifters. The teleporters. The telekinetics. Those who unleashed raw destructive power with their minds until it destroyed them. Within her own memories, she ached for them. She mourned them, the ever-increasing thousands of psychics who were dying in droves because no one understood how their gifts worked.

She was worse to them. She was more frightening, more terrifying, and in the moment it took her to dive into his mind and pluck the answer to her question, she agreed with this anonymous man entirely.

_ Good behaviour,  _ he thought contemptuously as she found the designs and flicked through them, imprinting them from his mind to hers.  _ This is what good behaviour yields. Just stick an ice pick in her brain and get it over with. We’d all be safer if she was dead. _

She wasn’t sure she disagreed, the notion briefly wistful. She could make this man kill her and it wouldn’t even be particularly difficult. That was why she needed to be collared and restrained.

Briefly, there was something new to the memory: denial. Adamant refusal to believe such a terrible thing about herself. A flood of love, of devotion that she was unworthy of.

_ You’re wrong,  _ spoke the voice in her mind, soft and warm. The man in her memories heard and saw nothing.

_ You’ll see, Horace,  _ she replied.  _ You’ll see and wish you hadn’t. _

The instructions to remove her collar were there inside her mind, along with the restrictions placed on her. Do not remove the collar. Do not ask to have the collar removed. Do not indicate that someone you have bonded to should remove the collar. Do not, do not.

There had been a tiny loophole she had pressed into his mind just before the sedation was put into place, the tiniest sense of rebellion.  _ You can show someone this memory, if they trust you, and then they will set you free. _

The cycle was complete. The memory continued, Diana’s understanding confirmed before the anesthesiologists injected her with drugs to make her sleep deeply. When she awoke, the collar would be fixed around her throat, the restrictions set high. They would instruct her how to make adjustments.

She would have the instructions implanted into her mind, out of her own reach with the collar’s emergency function activated, and they would believe she didn’t know.

Diana did. She always did. She had placed herself willingly into shackles, and now, here, she would be set free.

The memory was replaced with a vision: her meditation program. She stood out in the sun, letting the wind whip her hair around. It was a good feeling, a joyous feeling. A feeling of freedom as fake and illusory as the grass beneath her feet.

She could see the bars of her cage now, located at the periphery of her vision. Once she’d noticed them, taken the time to do so, she couldn’t help but see them all the time. They were close in, restrictive. She could see the sun beyond them, feel the grass under steel. Smell the rain behind the scent of iron.

“Come on,” called Wolfram, and she turned towards his voice. He stood at the door to her cell, holding a hand out to her. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“I’m dangerous,” she warned him. “I could hurt you.”

“You told me before that I had to say no to you,” Wolfram said, his grey gaze intense. “I’m saying it now. No, you aren’t dangerous. Not to me. No, you won’t hurt me. I’ve never met a more ethical person. No, I’m not afraid of you, even if you are. I’m here to set you free. Now I’m going to ask you a question in return: do you trust me?”

“What?” Diana asked, feeling her chest swell with emotion, more than she thought she could contain. “Of course I do.”

“Then don’t say no to me,” Wolfram said, and curled his fingers, beckoning. “Say yes.”

“Yes,” she whispered, and began to walk. “Yes, yes.”

“Good,” Wolfram said, smiling. “Yes.”

Diana’s footsteps became swifter, hurrying through the grass until she broke into a run and threw herself into his arms, still speaking one, simple word over and over again.

_ Yes. _

When the vision ended, instead of pressing her against the wall, Wolfram was cradling her against his chest, his strong arms wrapped around her smaller frame. She felt so light she might float without his help. She shifted a little, and her toe nudged against the collar.

_ Did you drop it on the floor? _ she asked in his mind, her thoughts strong and firm.  _ Really? _

_ I wanted to save the main event for when you could appreciate it,  _ Wolfram murmured into her mind, though his lips moved against her ear. Thoughts and words wrapped themselves around each other, and there was neither beginning nor end.  _ What should I do now? _

_ Step on it,  _ she thought back.  _ Crush it, destroy the fucking thing. _

“Your wish is my command,” Wolfram breathed, and took a half step bringing his heel down on the collar with a hard crunch. Something within her let go and she laughed softly.

“I’m free.” Diana leaned up and brought her hands up to cup his head, pulling him down for a long kiss.  _ I’m free. _

Immediately, her mind flew out in all directions. She touched every mind within the facility at once. She knew every name, every soul, every purpose inside her.

“You still haven’t explained what’s going on,” Nihma Singh said, her voice-soul angry at the intrusion. “By whose authority are you here?”

“We tracked the project here,” returned the lead soldier, his voice-soul weary, as though having answered this question a thousand times, though this time the truth slipped unbidden from his lips. “She disappeared from the radar and we were forced to activate her chip tracking. It stopped here.”

“To what end?” Nihma/Diana asked the man, wrapping her consciousness around the older woman’s mind, tugging at neural strings like a master puppeteer.  _ No, I don’t need to touch her, not with the collar off. _

“Director Ortiz received a report about a firefight in Australia and needed to confirm her status,” the soldier said. “The Martians have gone silent.”

“Then there was no conspiracy between the project managers?” Nihma/Diana demanded, gripping at Wolfram tightly. “No intent to kill?”

“Why would we kill a valuable tool?” the soldier asked, voicing a concern, a suspicion passed from employer to employee. “That would be foolish. We protect our assets.”

_ You’re more than that,  _ Wolfram thought, the words nestling between mind and heart.  _ You’re better than that. _

_ I don’t trust Ortiz to be a moral man, that’s why he needs me to act as his conscience,  _ Nihma/Diana thought.  _ I believe he wants to protect his investment. We can go out and speak to these men. _

_ If you say so,  _ Wolfram said.  _ I trust you. _

Diana unwrapped her mind from Doctor Singh’s, and Wolfram did the same for her, loosening his hold on her. His chest heaved, as though he’d been running for miles. Elation and exertion flitted through his auras and she smiled.

“So, that’s what that’s like,” she murmured. “It wasn’t ever just that I could make connections with people. It’s that I could do things like that without them. I can wear people like a coat. They can move faster, be stronger. They can see the world using my gifts.”

“Kinky,” Wolfram remarked, grinning when she hit him. “Do they remember it?”

“I can stop them from remembering it, but most of the time I did it with their cooperation,” Diana said. “Doctor Singh was sympathetic and worried about me. That was my in. I can seize control of someone, but it’s harder, and I…”

“...don’t want to because you think it’s evil?” Wolfram suggested, and she nodded. “Making that connection must take time.”

“No, unfortunately. All I need is a brief interaction, sometimes even third or fourth hand. My influence can spread through groups of people like wildfire. The easiest way to control someone is to have them do what they already wanted to do, just in a way convenient to you.”

“So that’s…” Wolfram thought about it. “That’s why you were worried, about you and me.”

“That’s exactly why,” Diana said. “And I still think--”

Wolfram kissed her, running his hands along her arms and her back. Diana clung to him for a moment.  _ No. _

_ You make it very difficult for me to have an ethical quandary,  _ Diana grumbled, pressing herself into his touch.  _ We should go rescue Nihma. _

_ We should,  _ Wolfram agreed, and gently broke the kiss, as easily as he’d initiated it. “Let’s go.”

“Just a moment,” Diana said, and reached up to her throat. She felt so much lighter without the collar, a burden she hadn’t fully realized she had been carrying until she shed it. The shirt she wore was long-sleeved and had a raised collar, like the turtles of old, though she’d only ever seen pictures. Carefully, she folded the collar down, creating something to conceal the missing collar.

Any examination at all would give her away, but she didn’t intend for anyone to give her too close a look.

“Here,” Wolfram said and reached around, adjusting the back. “I’ve got you.”

“Thank you, Horace,” Diana said, smiling at him softly. “I’m ready now.”

Wolfram reached around her and opened the door, letting her pass through first before he stepped out behind her. Diana scanned the corridor automatically, and found that the patrol was approaching them. She raised her hand in greeting.

“Hello,” she called out. “Here we are. Take us to your leader.”

The feeling of surprise, unease, and uncertainty was a little bit gratifying, as was the way that even mentioning their superior officer highlighted the connection between them in an instant.

“We have to check you for weapons,” one of them said. “Submit to pat down.”

“I’m unarmed, and more importantly, you’re not permitted to touch me,” Diana pointed out. “If you don’t know that, then you couldn’t possibly have been sent by  _ my  _ superior. As for my bodyguard, of course he’s armed. Why wouldn’t he be?”

“I’d be a pretty terrible bodyguard if I wasn’t,” Wolfram pointed out, voice low, calm. She could feel him draw on a touch of her power, making his voice persuasive. “You don’t need to do any of this anyway. We’re cooperating. Take us to your superior and everything will be just fine.”

The soldiers exchanged a look, shrugging and stepping aside. Diana stepped forward, and resisted the urge to take Wolfram’s arm. She’d become accustomed to touching him since the incident in Australia, as recent as that development had been, and returning to the usual way felt lonely.

_ Not that we’ve known each other very long to begin with,  _ she mused as the soldiers began to walk, keeping the pair between them.  _ It feels like I’ve known him for so long… the psychic connection does that. _

She could feel Wolfram’s thoughts in the back of her mind, like whispers on the wind. She had been able to sense his cursory thoughts before, as well as strong emotions, but now they shared a connection on the deepest level, and so his thoughts were with her.

It promised to make things interesting, at the very least.

The walk to Doctor Singh’s office was not a long one, and Diana resisted the urge to look towards her room, lest she reveal where she had been hiding with them all unknowing. When they were close enough, Diana could hear, as well as feel, their host’s annoyance.

One of the soldiers knocked firmly, and the yelling paused. “Come in.”

The same soldier opened the door, stepping carefully to avoid coming into contact with Diana as she walked through the door, Wolfram close at her heels. Doctor Singh looked between them, worried, but she smiled anyway.

Diana did not recognize the man come to fetch them, and he did not ‘feel’ particularly interesting, a curious quality in and of itself. His mind felt not unlike looking at a tinted window. There were hints and smears of personality but nothing solid.

_ I wonder if they’re creating soldiers specially designed to resist me, _ Diana thought, uneasy.  _ If so, who are they using for it? _

“Thank you for cooperating,” the lead soldier said, nodding to both of them briefly. “Director Ortiz was concerned about your disappearance.”

“I can give him a full report,” Diana said. “One that I feel will perhaps alter the future of Project Servitor.” She turned to Doctor Singh. “Nihma, thank you. You have been nothing but kind and generous to us. I’m afraid we’re going to wind up taking these clothes with us, but we’ll send them back to you when we can.”

“We have enough clothes, don’t worry,” Doctor Singh said, smiling. “You just get back to Arizona safely. Good luck with your project.”

Diana pressed her hand to her heart and bowed slightly. “Yours too. Say goodbye to the others for me.”

“I will,” Doctor Singh assured her. Diana felt her concern, and the way her heartbeat was slowing after the confrontation. Wolfram’s thoughts whispered assurance in the back of her mind, and again, she had to resist taking his hand.

“Let’s go,” the lead soldier said, gesturing. “You’ll be taking our jet back.”

“Actually, you’re going to want to make sure they’re both brought back to Arizona,” Diana said, looking to him. Again, his thoughts were mirror-slick. “It contains forensic evidence relevant to the report we will be making to Director Ortiz.”

“We didn’t  _ bring  _ multiple pilots,” the man snapped. “How are we supposed to crew both?”

“I’m sure you’ll find some creative way to do so,” Diana said, her lips quirking into a slight smirk. “After all, we got here, didn’t we?”

Where there should have been emotion -- anger at her insolence, curiosity at the absence of their pilot -- there was nothing, and he merely gestured for them to leave. There was no need to look to Wolfram or to confirm his concern. She could feel it.

_ Having him so close should be frightening to me, but instead it feels so freeing,  _ Diana thought.  _ It means I don’t have to be alone, isolated from everyone. _

_ Of course you don’t, _ Wolfram said.  _ I’m right here with you. _

“What are you smiling about?” asked one of the soldiers. This one Diana could sense well enough, and  _ he  _ was unnerved by her pleasant calm. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Diana said. “I look forward to going home.”

~ * ~

Wolfram slept on the plane ride back to Arizona, and Diana dozed, waking on and off to look out the window and contemplate the world above the clouds. In the end, owing to the dearth of pilots involved, soldiers had been left behind to guard the jet, while the rest escorted Diana and Wolfram back to the Project Xavier facility.

During one of her extended waking periods, Diana watched the news crawl, frowning at what she saw. The images of violence were not a surprise to her in a broad sense. After all, it had only been a handful of years since the end of a near-apocalyptic war. Of course there would be petty violence to undercut the grand efforts of humanity united against machine.

It was  _ why  _ there was violence that surprised her. There had been rumblings for months about the labour shortage on Earth, but they had had time to deal with it. She had investigated a number of the concerned parties at Ortiz’ request and told him that there was no danger of violent protest. So long as police provocation remained minimal, they would be content to write thinkpieces and offer advice impractical to the people of hivecities or those maimed by the very war that had brought them to this point.

No more, or so it seemed. Something had set them off, sending people into the streets, loudspeakers blaring as political leaders called for calm.

_ Food riots. Is there anything more terrible? Racist violence and health epidemics can pick people off and display the callousness and cruelty of those in power, but starvation cuts swathes across a world’s population. Wealth can stave it off, but you cannot pay an empty field to give you food. _

Diana let herself drift into an uneasy sleep. Images lingered her mind of signs with vicious words and faces twisted in anger and fear. She could see hands reaching out, throwing things, trying to provoke a police force already too-quick to violence.

She could see… she could see…

_ Metal. Not just in their hands, but-- _

“Attention, passengers,” called the pilot, a man named Briggs. Diana woke with a start, and the surge of her emotion woke Wolfram a moment afterwards. “We will be experiencing turbulence on our descent towards Phoenix, Arizona. Please remain secured, and be aware of the safety procedures in case of an emergency.”

“What is this, a commercial flight?” Wolfram muttered. “Any idea what’s going on?”

Diana flipped on the screen in front of her, searching for the news reports. Instead, she found quiet, sedate updates about weather and sports. “Not entirely, but I’m afraid we’re going to find out.”

Wolfram reached out, offering his hand to her, and Diana took it, twining their fingers together and letting her mind touch his.

_ I saw news reports while I was awake,  _ she explained.  _ Protests about the labour shortage escalating into food riots. They’re gone now, I think it’s being kept from us. _

_ Wonderful,  _ Wolfram replied.  _ Do you think it has something to do with the Martians? _

_ It could,  _ Diana admitted.  _ They failed to kill us, and now they’re trying to force Ortiz’ and the federal government’s hands. I’m certain there’s another way. _

Diana could feel the plane descending, and the rumble-shudder of the turbulence, though there was little it could do to truly threaten them. Their adventure was nearly over. With the protests, it was likely that Diana would be called on again to soothe the worries of citizens, assuming her brief foray into freedom after spending so long in chains did not see her isolated and collared once more.

_ They were chains of my own making, I shouldn’t resent them so much. _

_ You did what you had to so that you could continue to help people,  _ Wolfram said, thumbing gently over her knuckles.  _ You shouldn’t have to go back to it. _

_ We’ll see,  _ Diana said, smiling sadly.  _ I-- _

Abruptly, the news feed, such as it were, cut out, leaving Diana with only an error message. She let her thoughts flow into Wolfram’s mind, mixing with his, as their alarm blended together into one near-panicked whole.

_ Could it just be the turbulence interfering with the data transmission? -- No, why would it? It’s never done so before? -- The broadcast towers, then? Or the satellites? -- Never heard of that happening either, we used to get perfect transmissions even with a war going on. -- Then we’ve been cut off deliberately. What don’t they want us to see? -- It might not be the pilot or the military personnel… -- Then what are you proposing? Some kind of blanket-denial? That’s out of science fiction! _

The plane jerked violently, and Diana drew her hand back, bracing against the chair. New restraints, in addition to the old ones that usually kept her in place, closed around her. She glanced at Wolfram, similarly restrained, and then looked outside the window.

“The engine’s on fire,” Diana breathed as the jet dipped sharply. “Someone’s shooting at us again!”

“Oh, of course they are,” Wolfram said, swearing softly. “Keep loose, our seats should protect us when we get close enough to the ground.”

Diana’s eyes remained on the window, and the glint-flash of something streaking towards them. “And if we don’t get close enough to the ground for them to work?”

“...then we may very well be screwed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DVD Commentary Notes on Tumblr: [Chapter 4](http://ivorytowerblr.tumblr.com/post/180244587166/wh20k-fic-court-of-stars-part-462-epilogue)


	5. Chapter 5

The smoke and dust thrown up by the wreckage made Diana's eyes burn and stream, nearly blinding. She coughed, feeling each half-breath rattle in her lungs, threatening to choke her. She held one arm up to protect her face from it all, to little avail.

That she could walk at all was a miracle she owed entirely to her seat’s safety features. The same could not be said for Briggs, who had died when a missile had hit the cockpit, and their escort, who hadn’t made it to their seats. But Wolfram was alive. She knew that the way she knew her own soul.

She just needed to find him.

Diana cast her senses about her, and they returned only static. Her mind buzzed, crinkled like paper or foil, and that concerned her greatly. It could have meant that her own injuries were internal, within her mind and her senses rather than external, or it could have meant that Wolfram was the one who was too badly hurt to move or act.

If the fall had killed him and spared her, she wasn’t sure what she would do. She was not a woman given to violence. Her gifts had always dictated softer, gentler tactics; controlling the minds of others was considered bloodless by some, though her much-vaunted ethics didn’t allow her that luxury. She was also not often inclined towards despair-provoked oblivion. She knew herself too well, and more, knew how to tuck such emotions away.

_ If I cannot scream and I cannot cry, then I will walk this earth until there is nothing left for me to find,  _ Diana thought grimly.

It was difficult to walk among the ruined metal and the rising smoke. It was fortunate they’d come down outside the city limits, even as it made it very difficult to find help. She stumbled over broken earth and twisted scraps, and took in a gulp of air, only to cough a moment later when it hit her punished lungs.

_ I feel as though I’m on fire, burning on the surface of the sun,  _ Diana thought, retching.  _ I would be happy never to feel like this again. _

She needed to rest. Rest, rest and regroup. Faintly, through the smoke, she saw a lump of rock and lurched towards it. When she reached it, she sat heavily against it, trying her best to breathe.

_ Focus,  _ she told herself.  _ Focus on Horace, you’ll find him by being calm, not by flailing about in the dark. _

It was difficult. The static was no less profound here than it was closer to the ruins, though the air was marginally clearer. It was late at night, by the angle of the full moon, bright behind the obscuring smoke. Diana stared up at it for a moment, blinking away irritation from her eyes.

_ I can see the moon. It’s as clear as it can be. That likely means I’m not concussed, but I’m still not sure about the static. It’s only gotten worse, like the noise is getting--  _ Diana paused, considering.  _ Closer. It’s getting closer. Which means it’s coming from something that  _ moves.  _ Which means it’s either Horace or someone is investigating the ruins. _

Diana closed her eyes, and focused her attention not within, but without. She could hear noise, soft, crunching sounds as heavy footfalls ground stones and dirt into dust. Certainly, the sound was getting closer, the pace entirely too leisurely to be Wolfram. Each step sounded measured, cautious but not stumbling.

_ I have to hide.  _ Diana scrambled from the stone and moved around to the other side, ducking behind it. There was no proof that the direction she had chosen would conceal her from her pursuers, but something was surely better than nothing.  _ So there’s someone looking for me. Fine. That someone is likely the same someone who shot us down, either in spirit or in practice. Fine. I’m unarmed and untrained in traditional methods of combat. Fine. _

She had to find Wolfram. She had to learn what had happened to him and if she could rely on his help or not. There was no point in sitting around waiting to be rescued if rescue was not in the offing.

Diana closed her eyes again, and this time, faced the static head-on. Instead of trying to ignore it or hear around it, she focused on it, listening to the patterns as she teased information out of nothingness.  _ The sound is steady. Its variations are identical. Up, down, up… or perhaps left, right, left. They’re a march. Which means I have to ‘walk’ past them. _

She envisioned her own set of footsteps, walking in sync with the sound of the static. As she matched the rhythm, she heard something from it, like a noise muffled by the footsteps. Left and right, left and right. Left…  _ son of a…  _ and right. Left and…  _ swear I’ll punch…  _ right.

_ Horace,  _ Diana thought, opening her eyes again. She reached out with her mind, threading between the static, between the footsteps and marching feet, her heartbeat surging behind her ribs.  _ You’re alive. _

_ Yeah, I am,  _ was the return, remarkably grumpy all things considered.  _ I’m fucking stuck. Don’t suppose you could give me a hand? _

Diana felt a laugh bubble up from behind her lips.  _ Stuck? Stuck where? _

_ In my fucking safety seat.  _ Diana twisted, looking around the stone. The smoke was still thick, but now she had a thread to follow.  _ My arms are trapped. _

_ I’m sorry,  _ she offered him as she shifted to her hands and knees. Carefully, Diana began to crawl. Her hands brushed over the ground before putting her weight onto each palm and scrambled forward, moving back towards the wreckage.  _ At least you’re alive. _

_ I am, at that,  _ Wolfram said.  _ And you’re not hurt? I was worried when I couldn’t hear you. _

_ Someone is trying to kill us,  _ Diana replied grimly.  _ Again. _

_ I got that,  _ Wolfram said.  _ The missiles and all. You mean something a little more personal. _

_ Yes,  _ Diana said, and put her hand down, only to hiss softly. She examined her hand and found it mostly dirty, and sore.  _ I can sense something coming. Something I can’t identify. It’s what made it hard for me to speak to you, there’s static. _

_ I hadn’t really noticed, other than that you were quiet, but that’s why you’re the expert,  _ Wolfram said.  _ So, how do we get out of here? _

_ One problem at a time,  _ Diana said.  _ Let me get to you first. _

_ Well, I’m not exactly going anywhere,  _ Wolfram replied.  _ So I think we’ve got some time. _

Diana crawled around the other side of the jet and paused, going to one knee. She could hear the static, feel it tingle along her senses, but she still couldn’t see the source. On this side of the wreck, moonlight lit a path towards rubble scattered across the desert and Diana darted towards it.

Once she was close enough, she could hear Wolfram, rather than static, his thrashing deeply irritated-sounding, a texture to it that tasted of frustration and eagerness, in different measures.

“I’m here,” Diana called out softly, her voice hoarse from the smoke. “You have a knife, don’t you?”

“It’s in my leg sheath,” Wolfram said, and shuffled slightly. “There.”

The soldier was trapped in the remains of his seat, the webbing and protective straps tangled and adhered to one another. Diana knelt down, feeling up his leg until she found the top of his boot, and then, with some effort, found the knife-sheath and pulled the whole thing free.

“Just one moment,” Diana said, and drew the blade. Carefully, she slipped the knife under a strap and began to cut, pointing the knife away from both of them. It took only moments to free him, and Wolfram sighed, and then coughed. “It’s smoky,” she observed.

“Thanks, I’m glad you’re here to tell me these things.” Wolfram held his hand out for the knife, and Diana sheathed it before holding it out for him. Immediately, he tugged her into his arms, hugging her close. “We’re not dead.”

“We’re not dead,” Diana agreed, pressing her face into his neck. “Stage one complete. Stage two is finding a safe route out of here. Those things are coming.”

“I know,” Wolfram said, his voice soft against her ear. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Diana nodded, even as the static grew louder. “I know you will, though I could do with less of that.”

“Static again?” he asked, and she nodded. “It’s more of a… buzzing, isn’t it?”

“You can hear it too?” Diana asked, looking up a little. “No… wait, that’s…”

The sound came not as loud, marching feet, but as muffled shuffling across the desert sands. Diana craned around as the first shapes began to appear within the gloom and moonlight made the shadows they cast deeper.

They were machines; that was the first thing that came to her mind, surprise mingling with bone-deep fear. The notion that the Iron Men could have returned, could be trying to kill her once again, crept across her like a carpet of bugs, causing her to shudder.

A step or two later, she saw the truth of the matter, and that was far worse.

They were  _ not  _ machines. Diana could see pale, pasty flesh between heavy mechanical prosthetics, and their shape  _ was  _ humanoid, though not entirely human. They skittered as they walked across the sands, bearing guns, searching for them.

“What the fuck are those?” Wolfram breathed out, his chin resting on her shoulder as he held her. “They can’t be more robots.”

“I think,” Diana said softly, “this is what Bilaraat was planning with the clones. They’re human underneath all that metal. Cyborgs.”

“Zombies,” Wolfram said. “We have to run, I can’t fight all of them.”

Fear. He was afraid, though he held it deep inside him. She could feel the very edges of his conditioning fray, and if it broke, if he surrendered to the horror of it all…

“You can,” Diana said. “There’s one last thing I can do, that I can show you. We have to be very quick about this. You trust me, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Wolfram said, and unwound his arms from her. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” Diana said, and smiled. “Just sit a moment, let me take care of things.”

Wolfram nodded as she sat back. Diana took the knife from his hand and cut a fragment of cloth from her shirt, exposing her midriff to the night air. She shifted her grip on the knife and drew her hair to her, cutting a lock from it and setting the curl of cornsilk blonde down over the dirty cloth.

Considering briefly, she shifted her grip again, and pressed the tip of her first left-hand finger to the point of the knife until it brought up a bead of blood. Diana pressed the blood into the cloth, gritting her teeth a little as it stung. Wolfram only watched, curious and wondering. When she was satisfied, she handed Wolfram back the knife.

“You’ll need this,” she said, and gathered up the bundle. She tied it together tightly, careful not to lose the hair, and then lifted it in one hand. She drew his dog tags from under his shirt and tied the bundle around it, double and triple securing the knot. Power tingled under her fingertips. “We’ll do this together, you and I. Don’t lose faith in me and we’ll see this through.”

“I believe in you, of course I do,” Wolfram said. “But you still haven’t told me what’s going on.”

“You’ll see,” Diana said, and leaned in, pressing her lips against his and placed her hand over the pouch. The connection was the easiest one she had ever made. They had all of the right levels of contact -- casual touches and his protective instincts, the intimacy of kissing and of emotional attachment -- and now, the final step, mixing parts of their very essence together, represented by blood and hair from her and his service and devotion to the military and his duty to her from him.

Gently, she/Wolfram took her/self by the shoulders and set her/self aside, to rest against the ruin of the safety seat. They stood, and looked around. Darkness was no longer a concern. How could it be when the mind had no eyes with which to see. Why would it care about the dark? They could see everything. She knew the shape of cacti and scrub, the immediacy of the wreckage and even, like the twinkling of distant stars, the people of Phoenix, even at the very edges of the hive’s expansion.

The creatures before them were clear. Heavy prosthetics covered most, though not all, of their flesh. They had minds, organic ones, and as promised, they were programmed. They knew how to move quietly and had good bodies for it: there was no concern over weight capacity, and, moving across the desert, warmth or cold. They had no real thoughts. That was what lay behind the static. They might be able to learn, but that too was merely programming.

No intuition. No spontaneity. _ No problem. _

Diana/Wolfram spun the knife in their hand, looking towards the first of the creatures. They were methodical, but they hadn’t seen her/them. Not yet. They could feel their formation, their approximate shape. They moved towards the wreckage of the plane, using it as cover. They didn’t need to see, just feel, just sense the world around them, a riot of impressions cloaked in smoke and shadow.

_ We need to pick them off,  _ Wolfram thought, sitting side by side with Diana in his own mind.  _ No matter what you have planned, if they all turn and fire, I’ll die, and then you will. _

_ Dying isn’t my intention,  _ she promised him, raising his hand. Softly, very softly, she banged against the ruined plane with one hand. One of the cyborg soldiers turned slightly. A buzz rose and fell -- communication of some sort -- and it broke off. The others kept walking, sweeping lights and weapons over the crash site.

Diana focused her senses on the creature, even as Wolfram rose, faster than any human was meant to. His muscles bunched and she fed strength into him, fed power and an aim that could not miss. The flesh exposed between prosthetics was a small target to hit, in the dark, with a combat knife, but the blade’s trajectory was true, dropping the cyborg in an instant. Then they darted out again, grabbed the body and lugged it behind cover.

_ It’s heavy,  _ Wolfram grunted as they worked.  _ Not a great design if you need to avoid breaking things. _

_ It wasn’t trying to avoid it, though,  _ Diana noted as they picked through the cyborg’s armaments. Wolfram’s mind had answers to questions she had barely thought, and he lifted one of the guns with some difficulty.  _ This is one of the applications of Project Servitor, it must be. They would replace human soldiers with this. _

_ For both good and ill,  _ Wolfram thought.  _ I don’t like to see my fellow humans shot at or sent to the trenches to die. Who would? These, though… no mercy, no pity, no respite. _

_ Human emotions are a critical part of the process,  _ Diana replied, retrieving the knife and sheathing it.  _ Creating unfeeling, unthinking beings to suppress dissent is no less horrific than if we’d just let the Iron Men kill us all. _

_ How long can you keep this up?  _ Wolfram asked, moving around the wreckage, coming around behind the cyborgs. They remained within the shell, avoiding line of sight. It wouldn’t be long before they saw  _ her,  _ and then things would get a little more complicated.  _ So I have an idea of what we can do. _

_ Not forever,  _ she admitted.  _ Fifteen minutes, possibly a little longer. Ready? _

_ Always.  _ They rose, and aimed at the next cyborg, firing their stolen weapon. The recoil was harsh, even as bullets exploded from the barrel, blowing a gory hole in their target, while the others turned towards them. They staggered, and shook their heads to clear it.  _ Now, that’s a non-standard weapon. _

_ I don’t think I’d mind using one of these in the future,  _ Wolfram said.  _ You know, once I got used to the recoil. _

Simultaneously, the cyborgs opened up on them, filling the air with explosions. Diana/Wolfram spun away, ducking behind the wreckage, and then began to run around the other side. Already, the explosive rounds were chewing into the tortured metal and the scent of the burning plane ratcheted up to sharpness.

_ Maybe not,  _ Wolfram admitted as they aimed at another cyborg from the other side, waiting for the cycle of fire to slow.  _ That seems a little vicious. _

_ Perhaps if we were safe inside a tank,  _ Diana suggested.  _ Or a bunker. _

_ Not exactly practical to prance around in, is it?  _ Wolfram noted, and ducked away as they rocked back, avoiding the spatter from the explosion.  _ And if you could shrug off shots so easily, they’ll try harder to kill you. _

_ An increasingly more ridiculous arms race to prove who is the better murderer,  _ Diana grumbled. Moments later, the ground began to rumble.  _ Did they bring a tank? _

They rose briefly, peering over the wreckage. The being they saw was not  _ exactly  _ a tank. Instead, the vehicle appeared to be one half cyborg warrior and the other half a tank-treaded monstrosity. Diana felt intent from it, and the same buzzing static as the others.

Ominously, it was cycling an impressive belt of ammunition through a pair of rotating barrel guns, and even without her help, Wolfram would have been able to tell that it was going to fire.

_ Horace,  _ Diana thought urgently.  _ I need you to wing the remaining cyborgs. You need to be able to wound them but not disarm or kill them. _

_ I don’t know that this gun does subtle, but I’ll try,  _ Wolfram promised. They rose, snapping off fast shots. Of the three remaining cyborgs, one died immediately as it turned its head towards the movement. The others were in close enough proximity that the shrapnel struck them, scoring hits.

_ Good enough,  _ Diana told him, and whipped her mind out like a lash. The wound had come from one of their guns, wielded by Wolfram, who was wearing her charm. The charm connected him to her, and so they were all one: she and Wolfram, the gun and the wounds. The remaining cyborgs jerked around, leveling their weapons at the tank.  _ Fire! _

They fired.

The sound of all three weapons discharging, emptying into the tank-thing, was near deafening, and Diana feared for her body’s ears, that they would crack under the strain of so much noise. Wolfram was in less danger, having been trained to handle such volume during his military training, but Diana’s head ached.

_ I can’t lose focus, not now,  _ she thought as the creature fell over and died.  _ We’re almost there. _

Diana gripped the mindless creatures and forced them to face each other. As one, they fired at each other, point blank, causing an explosion of metal and meat. They ducked down, hiding from the last of the ruination.

_ Is that it? Are we safe?  _ Wolfram asked, dropping their empty gun and working their shoulder with a wince.  _ Don’t think I want to do that again. _

Diana stretched her senses out as wide as she could, and that instinct was the only thing that threw them to the side, through the ruin of metal shards and torn up scrub as the final  _ thing  _ jumped down from the sky, landing on the ruin of the plane and shattering it to pieces.

_ No,  _ Diana thought grimly.  _ We are not safe at all. _

This cyborg was large, head and shoulders taller than their own not-unimpressive form. It had four arms, each ending in a vicious, scything blade, and was sleek, metal bolted over flesh. Its face was human, and while blank and generically shaped, it had something feminine to it. There was no other sign of any gender, certainly not as it advanced menacingly, forcing them to scramble backwards.

_ That’s definitely new,  _ Wolfram thought.  _ I didn’t think femme fatale robots existed outside of movies. _

_ Everything that’s happened to us could have been lifted from a terrible action movie,  _ Diana thought.  _ Get your knife out. _

_ Are you actually insane?  _ Wolfram demanded.  _ It’s going to slice me like a radish. _

_ You trusted me this far, trust me a little further,  _ Diana urged.  _ I swear to you that we will both get out of this alive. Get your knife out and trust me. _

_ As first dates go, this is ridiculous, for the record,  _ Wolfram said as they drew their knife, holding it even with their chest.  _ I usually save assassinations for the third. _

_ I’ve never much been one for tradition,  _ Diana replied.  _ Let’s go. _

They leapt forward, bringing their knife up to meet a strike, angling the knife so that the other blade slid off of it rather than shear the knife in half. The cyborg attacked again, and they parried and dodged each blow, metal ringing with each contact. They needed an opening, something to make that connection. Mere battle would not be enough, they would have to damage it.

...and for all of Diana’s power and Wolfram’s skill, she wasn’t sure how to do it.

They moved, weaving away from deadly blow after decapitating strike, parrying and thrusting, seeking weakness and finding none.

Perhaps, if they had more than a knife, they might be able to stop it. Perhaps a better location, or more ample ammunition. Another of those guns to break open the metal prosthetics that gleamed like a black insect carapace.

Something, anything, to make the difference.

_ We might have to throw the knife,  _ Diana warned.  _ We’d only get one shot, but if I could control it…  _ She couldn’t keep her unease from Wolfram, nor could she hide the fact that her attention was wavering. Darkness was beginning to overtake her, and she had to fight that back as much as she was the cyborg assassin.

_ We need a better plan than that,  _ Wolfram said.  _ If we fall back, if I can get my hands on some of that metal, one good shot-- _

_ With our off-hand?  _ Diana demanded.  _ Not to mention you could cut your hand open. _

_ We managed it with the other cyborgs,  _ Wolfram argued as they parried another blow.  _ I think it could work, but we shouldn’t give up our only remaining weapon. You could miss. _

_ I won’t miss. _

_ Yes, but you  _ could--

A crack split the air and Diana threw them back, away from the creature. She had just enough left to see the thing fall with a hole the size of her fist between what was left of its eyes.

As her vision went black, and the world seemed to slide away from her, she realized she could hear the sound of a helicopter, blades roaring as it came in to land.

~ * ~

She stood in an endless field, the long grass blowing gently in the wind. It ran through her cornsilk hair like a caress and she smiled. She tilted her face up towards the sun, reveling in its warmth. The long, pure-white cloth that sheathed her body flapped like a flag during a fine day, and had it been colder, it would have done little to protect her. As it stood, she rotated slowly, letting the fine weather soak into her being. There was serenity here, and she intended to hold onto it as long as she could.

_ I have done this before,  _ she thought idly.  _ This isn’t a real place. It belongs to me, but it isn’t real. Why am I here? _

Diana turned, looking around. The sun was moving, unlike her meditation program, towards the horizon. It was  _ setting,  _ and if time passed as it did in the real world, the moon would rise, changing her field entirely.

_ Curious,  _ she mused.  _ Very curious. I can’t stay here. I need to find Horace. I need to know that he’s well. That we’re safe. _

Safety meant imprisonment. It meant shackles. It meant restraint. Freedom meant danger, it meant fear and death and loss.

Safety meant isolation and loneliness, freedom meant Horace Wolfram and a thousand tiny touches she longed for.

Diana gathered herself up and began to walk towards the door. She could not see it or sense it, but she knew it was there. It was always there, exactly where she had placed it.

Fantasy must always give way to reality.

By the time she reached the door, the sun had set and night had fallen. The air was chill, the cold seeping into her bones past the thin, cloth dress. She could not stay in this illusion.

Diana reached out and touched the door, and the world went dark again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DVD Commentary Notes on Tumblr: 


	6. Chapter 6

When she woke, truly woke, awareness came back to her slowly. At first, it was the faint sensation of air across her skin, brushing against the tape on her hand and the strange, but not unbearable, feeling of an intravenous needle inside her. It was accompanied by the gentle creak-wiggle of the ceiling fan above and the soft beeping of the heart monitor, keeping time with her pulse.

Diana’s eyelids felt heavy, but she opened them, eyelids fluttering, and found herself in the near-dark.

She was not alone.

Immediately, she reached out to the figure sitting at her side, and found her mind clouded.  _ Psychic suppressing drugs,  _ she thought tiredly, and closed her eyes again.  _ I must be home. _

A moment later, she felt a hand take hers and lace their fingers together. She opened her eyes and gazed up in quiet desperation at the one who dared touch her so fearlessly.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Horace Wolfram said, and reached out with his other hand, touching her cheek. “Have a good nap?”

“Yes,” Diana said, smiling up at him with sheer relief. “I’m amazed they let you stay with me.”

“I told them if they were so worried about contamination and control that it was better to let me stay than expose someone new. I hope your IV isn’t uncomfortable, they had to instruct me in how to insert it.”

“They’re suppressing me heavily enough that they shouldn’t even worry,” Diana grumped, and oddly, Wolfram laughed.

“That’s fluids, sweetheart,” Wolfram said, stroking her cheek. “You’re not being suppressed at all. You were dehydrated and exhausted from everything that happened. Your brain is fuzzy because you’re tired.”

Diana considered this possibility for a moment. “That hasn’t happened in a long time. Even during the war I had to be so careful.”

“I know.” Wolfram leaned in and kissed her temple. When he moved to pull away, she clung to him and pulled him down to kiss him firmly, desperately. “Not in a hospital, darling. There are rules.”

“Sweetheart? Darling?” Diana murmured as she rubbed her nose against his. “That’s new.”

“What can I say, sharing a brain with you opened the possibility for pet names,” Wolfram whispered back. “You can come up with your own for me, give it time.”

“You’re incredible.” Diana let him go and sighed. “So, what happened while I was out?”

“Ortiz sent some people to pick us up.” Wolfram sat back, leaving their hands joined. “They saw the plane go down, but weren’t sure there were any survivors until the fighting started. They recorded everything, the cyborgs, the tank and the assassin… what we did. They took your little bag thing and destroyed it, I’m sorry. I didn’t even get to keep my dog tags.”

“It’s fine, I’m not going to be riding someone like that again for a long time.” Wolfram grinned at her, and she raised an eyebrow at him. “Not that  _ specific  _ kind of riding, anyway.”

“They debriefed me, I told them about the second plane in Antarctica and they said they’ll send someone, and another team to Australia to interrogate Bilaraat and the Martian contingent, but it’ll all take time.” He sighed. “I had to tell them about how you got out of the collar. They need to find another way, they said, to restrain you so you couldn’t do it again. I know what will happen next, and I offered… I wanted to see you, to be the one to tell you about their decision.”

“They agreed because I’d stay for you and not attack you,” Diana observed. “We have an attachment, it’s two-way.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Wolfram sighed again. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I--”

There was a knock on the door and an orderly came in. Diana glanced over to see the man -- dark-skinned, black hair pulled back in a queue, remarkably unremarkable features -- approach them.

“No one is allowed to touch Ms. Tyler,” Wolfram warned immediately. “Where’s Ortiz?”

“I’m only here to take some samples, Captain Wolfram,” the orderly said, avoiding his gaze. “Please, I can take the sample from you first as a demonstration.”

Wolfram frowned, but nodded. “Fine. Do it.”

The orderly flicked on the lights, and Diana’s eyes watered. She felt Wolfram release her, and blinked until her eyes cleared. The orderly set down a small kit and opened it. She observed as the man took hair samples and skin swabs, both interior and exterior, and then two vials of blood.

Diana tried to sense his intent, but all she could feel was the static within her own mind.

“You’ll have to instruct me,” Wolfram said. “No one--”

“Have no concern there,” the orderly said. “I  _ just  _ need to get samples.”

_ Interesting,  _ Diana thought. “Can you take out my IV as well?”

“Now that you’re awake, certainly.” The orderly sealed the first kit and labeled it, then opened the second and approached her. Diana watched as he switched off the monitors and freed her from IV and blood pressure cuff both, then began to take the same samples. Diana reached out again, while only thin latex gloves separated them, but found him as unreadable as before.

_ I really must be exhausted,  _ she mused.  _ It’s as bad as trying to deal with the cyborgs. _

Once the orderly was finished with her, she settled back, rubbing at the cotton wad on her hand before meeting Wolfram’s concerned gaze with a smile.

“So, you were saying,” Wolfram said, encouraging. “Tell me.”

“I don’t intend to be shackled again,” Diana said, waiting for the orderly to leave. “I could live with it when I was younger, but not now. Not when I have you. I don’t want to lose you, I don’t want to lose  _ this. _ ” She reached out to him, and he grasped her hand tightly. “Do you know what the security is like?”

“Fairly light,” Wolfram said. “They expect us to cooperate.”

“I don’t always like being predictable.” Diana nodded to him. “Do I have clothes?”

“They brought me another one of your flappy dresses, if that will do.” Wolfram released her and moved around the room, finding her shoes and clothes and brought them to her. “Are you sure you can walk?”

“I can walk out of here,” Diana said. “Leave that to me. You just make sure we have a place to go.”

“Let me make some calls.” Wolfram leaned in to kiss her softly, and then pulled back, moving out of the room and into the hall. She watched him until he was out of her sight, then closed her eyes and sighed.

_ Am I really going to do this?  _ she asked herself, though she already knew the answer: yes. Freedom had become too precious to give up, and out of all the other people she had been permitted some small level of connection to, Wolfram was… special. His presence was felt even in absence, and it was like a warm spot on a bed to roll into.  _ Enough sentiment. If we get caught leaving, neither of us gets to be free. _

Diana sat up, moving carefully. She shucked her medical gown, leaving it folded on the bed as she pulled on her dress. It felt sun-warmed where the recovery room was cool, and she couldn’t help but smile. Diana tugged it into place, then stood, slipping her feet into shoes that felt loose without socks.

_ I feel half-dressed, but if we -- when we -- get out of here, we can solve that problem quite sufficiently.  _ Diana nodded to herself and walked towards the door. She expected there to be an alarm when she opened it, some way to detect that she had moved beyond the confines of her room.

Nothing. No klaxon, no angry beep, just the soft click of the door as it closed behind her. Wolfram was speaking on the phone still, his voice terse, businesslike. She touched his elbow gently and he looked over at her, smiled warmly, and returned to his conversation.

Diana waited, looking up and down the hallway. As it had been before, this part of the base had been cleared out due to her presence, deserted when the rest of it must be busy working on the problem of Project Servitor and the Martians.

She closed her eyes, and tried to focus past the static. Nothing. More than nothing, the sensation was beginning to pulse in her temples, almost like a headache.  _ None of that. Let’s just… relax. It will come in time. _

Once he was finished, Wolfram tucked his phone away and nodded to her. “A car will be here to pick us up. They’re going to put us up in a hotel. I hope you like elevators, it’s top floor.”

“It’s fine,” Diana assured him. “I’m sure the view will be lovely. I very much want to see the sky.”

Wolfram offered her his hand and she took it. There was connection between them, lightning fast and tingling, and she smiled. He smiled back, and then began to walk, his pace measured, calm. As though they weren’t running away, fleeing from a promise.

They met no one as they walked, and the further they were from Ortiz and his office, from the recovery room and the threat of shackles and drugs, the lighter Diana became. A question nagged at her, wondering who Horace could have been speaking to, but it was hard to focus on the thought for long around the buzzing in her skull. Diana set it aside, and focused on the matter at hand.

When they reached the outer door, she put her hand on it, and Wolfram’s was there, next to hers, and they pushed the door open together, stepping out into the freedom of the sunshine.

~ * ~

“This really is a nice view,” Diana commented, pressing her fingers to the window. From the hotel room she could see out over the hive city. There were so many minds that they buzzed under her fingertips, though the static lingered in her mind.

Behind her, in the suite’s kitchenette, Wolfram was preparing a meal, and only grunted in reply.

Phoenix was a huge city, sprawling across the Arizona desert. It had changed many times over the years, destroyed and rebuilt, reborn like the firebird it was named after. Now, its skyline was dominated by huge buildings stabbing upwards towards the clear blue sky like accusatory fingers, their sides covered by panels collecting solar energy and using them to power the very buildings providing their platform.

At the tops of the buildings were greenhouses, rampant with growth. Water had long been a matter of import in Arizona, but the West Coast Collapse a millennium ago had solved it, in its own way. The western coastline had been given to desalination, a sacrifice meant to save the Merican west.

People knew the old name,  _ America,  _ but when the continent had collapsed, the joke had been to drop the letter that had rested over the missing land, and it had spread until few immediately recalled it. Like the land, it had crumbled into history, into dust.

With the water had come growth in cities, making up for the rapidly shrinking farmland. Instead of trying to grow certain crops in the desert, residents used a combination of hydroponics, greenhouses, and aquaculture that produced unusual yet vital foodstuffs. Now, seaweed and algae were ubiquitous, and some were even lucky enough not to have to leave their own hive spires to feed their families.

The food Wolfram was preparing now had been retrieved at a grocery store, after his insistence that Diana needed real food, not premade garbage, and that it would clear her head. Diana was reluctant to tell him that the difference would be marginal, because being fussed over was a luxury she had no intention of giving up.

Instead, she watched the clouds as they drifted past, as the world turned under them, as life carried on amongst people who were ignorant of clones, cyborgs, and unfettered psychics.

_ I hope they’re always so innocent,  _ Diana prayed, her lips moving slightly as she did.  _ I hope most people never have to be traumatized or hurt. I hope their worries are small and easily solved with patience, communication, and care. I hope their therapists are well-paid and attentive to the needs of their patients, great and small. _

“We’re almost ready here,” Wolfram called out. “Sit.”

Diana lingered at the window a moment longer before walking across the room and sitting on a high bar stool at the counter. Wolfram leaned across to kiss her lingeringly, before turning to finish with the last of the food, presenting it to her with a flourish.

Diana picked up the hard, plastic chopsticks that had been set before her and began to pick through the meal of neatly chopped vegetables and vat grown meat. She made a soft noise of appreciation as the taste of it struck her palate, tangy and yet not spicy, distinct and flavourful with just the faintest hint of salt under it all. Wolfram watched her expression closely, then nodded, smiling before he dug into his own meal.

After a moment of savouring the food, she reached for the decanter Wolfram had set out and poured them both some water into the half-sized hotel cups.

“I wouldn’t have imagined you could cook,” Diana commented. “It wasn’t in your memories.”

“I don’t think about it a lot,” Wolfram admitted, soaking a piece of meat in the sauce with his chopsticks. “It’s not usually something a soldier or a bodyguard needs to do. I was combat trained, not kitchen trained, but… it’s an important skill to learn.”

“I never really had the chance,” Diana admitted. “I was well off, isolated from a lot of important things. It helped protect me when my powers emerged, but I guess I missed out on a lot.”

“That only means I get to take care of you now,” Wolfram said, smiling at her. “And I will, forever. No matter what happens.”

“Horace…”

“I meant it before and I mean it now.” His expression became serious. “Diana, I love you, and no matter what happens, I want to be with you. We could get married, if you wanted. Move far away from Ortiz, to Europe or even find out if there’s something we can do in Antarctica. I won’t let them use you again. I swear it.”

The words settled on Diana like a blanket, comforting her, giving her responsibility as well as relieving her of a burden. She leaned in to kiss him, and tasted the sauce on his lips. Her tongue flicked out and he made a startled noise, half-laugh.

“I love you too, and I… I do want to marry you. I’m not sure about what else we should do, or even  _ can  _ do, but I know those two things. I also know that if we let this meal go to waste, we’ll be haunted by a thousand slabs of disapproving vat meat.”

“There is no possible way that last part is true,” Wolfram said, but dug into his meal. “Vat meat was never alive.”

“I’m not going to spoil the surprise for you,” Diana murmured, and continued to eat. Her food was delicious, and went down swiftly, but she nonetheless felt as though it took an eternity to consume, the sun dragging itself across the sky as she ate.

When they were finished, and Diana drank the last of her water, Wolfram collected up their plates and utensils before placing them in the sink and rinsing them lightly.

“I can wash them later,” Wolfram said. “Stay where you are for a minute.”

Diana nodded, folding her hands in her lap. She watched him come around the counter and stop in front of her. He went to one knee and took her hand in his. In his fingers was a twist of a plastic tie, roughly folded in the shape of a ring. Diana bit back a laugh. “Horace, you don’t have to…”

“I want to,” he said. “Diana Tyler, will you marry me? Will you promise to love, honour, and cherish me, as long as we both live? As our hearts and minds are intertwined, so too will our souls.”

“I will,” Diana said, opening her hand a little so he could slip the makeshift ring on. “And I do. Horace Wolfram, in return, will you promise to love, honour, and cherish me, as long as we both live? I have seen your soul and I know it as I do my own. We are intertwined, let this ring be the symbol of that connection.”

“I will, and I do,” Wolfram said. “I have a very important question to ask of my wife. Will you come to bed with me and let me love, honour, and cherish you?”

“Yes,” Diana said, laughing now. “Oh, Horace,  _ yes.” _

Wolfram rose, and gathered Diana into his arms. He kissed her, long and sweet, before picking her up, carrying her towards the bed, and setting her down.

They stared at each other for a long moment before she drew him down for a kiss, fisting his shirt in one hand while her arm wrapped around his neck. Wolfram braced himself against the bed briefly before letting her pull him down, and they both lay back on the bed.

“Yes,” he murmured between kisses. “Yes.”

Mirth bubbled up from Diana’s lips, and she giggled between kisses as she pulled Wolfram’s shirt up over his head and he broke off to discard it, and then shifted them both so Diana could lay with her head on the pillows. She gazed up at him, and touched over his heart where his dog-tags  _ should  _ have rested if they hadn’t been taken from him.

He was freed from his collar as much as she had been freed from hers.

“It’s fine,” Wolfram said. “Still good?”

“Yes,” Diana said. “You’re going to have to move if you want me out of this dress.”

“I definitely do,” Wolfram breathed, and backed up a little. He reached down, finding the edges of her dress and pulling them up and up, exposing the pale length of her stomach and the curves of her breasts. Diana propped herself up a little, helping him work her dress off before he dropped it onto the floor with his shirt.

Diana ran her hands along his stomach, even as he leaned down to kiss her again, pressing himself against her, and the laughter that had been resting in her throat came out as a long moan. Slowly, the rest of their clothing migrated from body to heap, and then they were resting flush with each other, skin to skin.

His thoughts were coming back to her, despite the static that only seemed to increase in intensity, and she focused on him, only him, for this precious moment.

_ I’ve never been intimate with another person before,  _ she admitted now as his mouth worked along her collarbone.  _ I couldn’t, not with the strength of my abilities. It’s not as though I can’t read your mind to find out. _

_ All it means is that I have to take my time and be careful,  _ Wolfram replied.  _ Draw it out. Make our first time the best time. _

“You’re an incredible romantic,” Diana murmured, and skimmed her fingers along his back. “I’d say you’re unbelievable, but I don’t really mean it.”

_ I’d like to think I’m just really good at sex,  _ Wolfram replied, skimming his mouth down between her breasts, kissing over her heart.  _ Mine. _

“Yours,” Diana agreed. “I hope you have stamina, because I’m going to want to do this more than once before this night is over.”

_ I can’t wait.  _ Wolfram’s mouth moved to one of her breasts, taking the nipple into his mouth and began to suckle. His hands went to her waist, and he began to rub his thumbs in gentle circles over her stomach. Diana moaned again, shifting at the gentleness of his touch. Her urgency didn’t reach him, for all their minds were linked, because he never seemed to move faster, to throb with the desire moving through her.

_ How are you so calm?  _ she wondered, even as his thumbs moved lower, to the crease of her hips, and his tongue flicked against her nipple, teasing it and sending a tingle of need through her.  _ Conditioning? _

_ Practice,  _ he replied, and raised his head a little, taking in great gulps of air. She met his gaze and found desire in his eyes. “But I’m definitely not calm.”

“Could… have fooled me,” Diana replied, petting at his hair before he brought his mouth down again, this time taking up her other nipple, while his hands moved lower, stroking her hips in gentle circles before nudging her thighs open.

It took time for him to tire of her breasts and move his lips down, kissing her stomach, sometimes nipping gently. It took time for his thumbs to find her lower lips and caress them. Time for his mouth to press against the cleft between her legs, licking gently at first, then suckling, then plunging his tongue into her. Wolfram lifted one of her legs up to hook around his shoulder, while he held her other thigh.

Diana writhed under him, moaning, crying out for him, increasingly frantic. Sensation moved through her in waves, making her hot and cold by turns, as though she were feverish. Her skin tingled from it, from her need for him and the treatment he saw fit to show her. Pleasure built within her like the coiling of a wire, poised to spring or snap, with each movement of his tongue and thumb tips.

_ I… I…  _ Diana called to him, her fingers tightening around the back of his head.  _ Horace! _

He hummed, and the vibration, combined with everything else, send her spiraling over the edge, her hips arching hard into his mouth. She was slippery, she could feel, and her pulse pounded between her legs as much as inside her chest as he licked her clean, then set her down to rest against the bed.

“Good?” he whispered to her as he moved off of her slightly, and his erection brushed against her thigh. “Speaking of endurance.”

“Very good,” Diana murmured, catching his arm. “But you’re not getting away that easily.”

“Just like this?” Wolfram asked, and knelt between her legs. “There are plenty of ways to make love.”

“For now, yes, but I hope you’re ready to show them all to me in the future.” Diana grasped for Wolfram’s arms, running her palms along his biceps. “Please.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and pushed the head of his cock against her slick entrance. “It might hurt a little, but that will pass. I’ve done everything else I can to help you relax.”

“I’m very relaxed,” Diana agreed. “I trust you.”

“I honour you and cherish you,” Wolfram said, and pushed into her slowly. He wasn’t wrong, there was discomfort there, a faint sensation of burning, but it passed, lost to static and sensation. She groaned and arched as he sank into her, and he moaned, keeping himself braced so as not to move too quickly. His thoughts became sharper in her mind, focused like the point of a laser.

_ So… so good, so warm,  _ he thought, echoing inside her skull.  _ The most beautiful woman in the whole world. My love, my wife. I never believed I’d be this lucky. Not in a million years. _

_ I’m lucky too,  _ she returned to him, and the reply caused him to move a little further until he was hilted in her deeply.  _ Show me. Love me. In this time and place you’re my whole world. _

_ I will, I swear I will, until the world burns, the galaxy, the universe,  _ Wolfram promised. Slowly, carefully, he began to move, his back and thighs quivering with restraint, but it held firm. Everything he had was focused on her, on a simple, primal movement that brought their souls closer and closer together.

Wolfram pressed his damp lips to hers and she kissed him back, holding him, clinging to him tightly. With time, and encouragement, he let her draw him down, resting much of his weight on her as their hips worked together, rocking back and forth. Diana’s hands moved through his short-cropped hair, and she kissed his mouth and his nose, nuzzled at his ear and let him hear her panting, her desire for him as he worked her up to that spiraling pleasure. He too was touching her, stroking his shaking fingers through her cornsilk hair, splayed out against the pillows like the rays of a sun, resting fingertips against her cheek, nuzzling her neck.

The second orgasm took less time than the first, and Diana arched again, pressing into Wolfram’s thrusts with unrestrained need. Wolfram came a moment after, and they worked frantically together until they had mingled so thoroughly it would take time to sort themselves out.

Out of breath, Wolfram rolled off of Diana, laying next to her on the bed, and gripped at her hand.

“That… that was…” Diana began when movement caught her eye. While they had been busy inside each other, the sun had begun to set. She had seen sunsets often enough to know that what she saw framed by the huge, open window was not a normal duskfall.

Instead of rays of orange, red, and gold drifting into indigo, violet, and then the velvet darkness, the sky was striated with violent purple-red, pulsing and pounding like a heartbeat. The moon, for all it had been full previously, was nowhere to be seen, as though hiding in fear.

“The… the static…” Diana whispered, and her fingers tightened around Wolfram’s.

It seemed to happen all at once. The sky split open like a knife shredding through cloth. Lightning filled the air, bursting out in all directions. Lights exploded and shattered, and their window cracked and broke open, crashing to the ground. Screams split the air as reality was torn open, exposing something raw and terrible, the essence of madness itself.

The awful sound did not end, and Diana pressed the palm of her free hand to the side of her head as it pounded, threatening to split her mind in half. It was more than just static, because between the sounds, she could hear something far more terrible.

It was a scream, the sound of a being the size of the universe giving birth, the violence of it tearing them open and making them hemorrhage essence and viscera and psychic might into the physical realm. It stained the fabric of reality violet and crimson.

It was also laughter, the joy of a being that should not have been but was, and ever would be.

Fear bubbled up in Diana Tyler’s mind, in her throat, in her being that had been, just moments ago, sated and her thoughts on nothing but carnal pleasure. It was all too much to her and when it began, she feared she would never be able to stop it.

She  _ screamed. _

~ * ~

There was an air of panic around the Project Xavier facility. Diana Tyler and Captain Horace Wolfram were gone. Security, armed with anti-psychic weapons and clad in armour resistant to same, had swept through the facility and found nothing.

In a small room, not much bigger than a closet, the orderly smiled. He applied chemicals to each of the samples he’d been given, suspending them in a gel that would preserve them long past what even modern medicine would believe feasible.

This was an important step, the  _ most  _ important step, as it happened. These samples, along with the records of both individuals, needed to survive anything and everything that the future had in store for them.

They needed to survive the apocalypse.

It was common for secret projects to have code names, for designations to be given to subjects, and  _ this  _ one would be no different.

Once the samples were preserved, they were placed back in their respective kits and sealed, then labeled before being sealed again. The work was done perfectly, but then again, he had no reason whatsoever to doubt his own skill.

The orderly smiled and placed each kit into a container disguised as a common medical cooler, and then stood. He left the room and stepped into the hallway, walking towards the entrance.

Around him, security still searched frantically while scientists bellowed at military personnel, who snarled back, and not one of them saw him. No one noticed a man who had never been employed by this facility, had no name, no record, no  _ face. _

The orderly set his hands where Diana Tyler and Horace Wolfram had touched the door and pushed it open.

_ Virgo. Sagittarius. Final collection phase… complete. _

**End Part I: Sagittarius and Virgo**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DVD Commentary Notes on Tumblr: [Chapter 6](http://ivorytowerblr.tumblr.com/post/180431427176/wh20k-fic-court-of-stars-part-662-epilogue)


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